You Too Can Become a YouTube Star
by Bill Ives
You knew this was going to happen. O’Reilly has come out with a book, YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts. As the ad states, if you want to be visible on YouTube or even go viral, then you’ve come to the right place. It is written by YouTube veterans Alan “fallofautumndistro” Lastufka and Michael W. Dean and provides easy-to-read instructions on getting a video of your cause, song, commercial, or unique point of view noticed by thousands. The book includes interviews with YouTube stars LisaNova, Hank Green (vlogbrothers), WhatTheBuckShow, nalts, and liamkylesullivan, as well as current YouTube staff. I heard that Joe the Plumber is autographing copies.
The book covers how to succeed in storytelling and directing, shooting, editing, and rendering, creating your very own channel, broadcasting user-generated content, re-broadcasting commercial content, cultivating a devoted audience, fitting into the YouTube community, and becoming a success story. It is the next best thing to American Idol. Actually, I think the book will make interesting reading and I have asked for review copy. If they honor this request you can see my review in coming weeks. So far they have not responded.
I wonder if they interviewed the Hey Clip producers. When I first wrote about them, their 3 minute lip synch video had 13,786.185 views (April 07). Recently the number had grown to 24,940,809 views and 54,289 ratings. Take a look, add to the total, and see a winning example. Their timeless piece is certainly doing better than the Bush Blair duet at 41,446 views.
