The VIDME experiment. How is it going?

A week ago, I sang the praises of Video upload site, VIDME, as a possible alternative or addition to Youtube. So, how are things going?

Well, not good unfortunately. Which I am very disappointed about. It terms of reliability, the site still has some way to go.

In order to build a following with Viewers, it's important to be able to provide regular content. People need a solid reason to come back. Without that, a channel is pretty much doomed. New members to VIDME are restricted to a 3GB weekly upload limit until they reach 50 Followers. OK, a pain, but I can live with that. In theory, if you can keep a regular upload schedule with quality content, you'll naturally get that.

So a regular schedule is the key. People will learn when you Upload so know when to tune in.

Initially, I put up 3 videos which used all the weekly Bandwidth. Got a few views which I was quite happy with. From there I could then plan a strategy going forward. Or so I thought. It was from here I started having all the technical problems that made the whole thing really difficult.

Uploads would freeze during processing or stop uploading completely halfway through. This was costing me time. When you're running a Channel, time is extremely important. Run out of it and your ability to make new content is severely reduced. You need systems you can rely on. VIDME was becoming time consuming and I was getting nothing accomplished.

I emailed the Help team initially and the response was to Re-upload the file. I tried this a large number of times, but this always gave the same result.  This Video failed to upload. Tried a number of different files. The problem is that VIDME's uploader is not as advanced as the one on Youtube. During a 2 to 3 hour upload, the likelihood I will lose Internet connection for at least a few seconds somewhere is relatively high. Youtube's Uploader can cope with this. VIDME's seemingly cannot. I'm guessing this is the issue, but cannot be 100% certain.

Some people with stronger Internet may not experience these problems at all, but for myself, the whole system becomes unworkable with trying to run a Gaming channel and keeping up the level of content I want to work towards. 

Unfortunately, for the time being at least, the VIDME side of things will be discontinued. Will have a look at it again in a couple of months. A big shame as initially, it looked like a great opportunity.

Nick :o) 

VIDME - An alternative to Youtube?

Additional opportunities for smaller content creators?

Since the reboot of my gaming channel on Youtube called njenkin around 4 years ago, growth has been steady, but not spectacular. The reason being, I think, the colossal volume of videos being uploaded every second on the site across the globe makes it very difficult to be found. 

I only monetised the Channel after 3 and a half years as I wanted to be certain I had something of quality to offer the viewer and could do it consistently. This I feel I have done and can continue to do so. However, for any Youtube Channel to take that next epic leap forward to professionalism it has to be able to generate enough ad revenue to stand on its own two feet. Looking at the Stats, although gradually increasing, I can see it's going to be very difficult to survive from Youtube Ad revenue alone in the short term unless something incredible were to happen.  A lot of smaller and increasingly medium to large Youtube channels are also feeling the same way.

So what's the answer? Give up?

No!

It's important to make videos for fun if you're passionate about the subject matter. I recently stumbled across a new Video site called VIDME. Founded in 2014, it's much smaller than YouTube, but recently started to offer monetisation opportunities.

I've only put up one video on it so far to test the water. Still finding my feet with it, but the site reminds me a lot of how Youtube used to be before it were acquired by Google. Seems initially more friendly to the smaller creator with the potential for a lot of growth. Whether this will be the case, it's impossible to predict, but I thought it would be worth a test run to see what happens.

In order to monetise content, a member needs to have 50 Followers. At time of writing this blog, I have zero, but the first video was only put up today. Hopefully we'll get there soon so I can give this a proper trial.

At the end of the day, the site is free and smaller channels have got nothing to lose. Below is my first video on the site.

https://vid.me/CbDVc

 
If you get a chance, please take a look. If you sign up on VIDME, then be sure to give me a Follow. It all helps !!  This doesn't mean I'm suddenly leaving Youtube. Should be there for the foreseeable future.

Nick :o)