So, we work with these guys and I can tell you that right now this is definitely low in terms of an estimate of the money they are making.
In addition to what they make from ads, a lot of YouTubers will get paid to make videos that involve a product, etc. For some (most?) that is actually a larger source of income than the AdSense.
Also there are many many more than 10 YouTubers who are doing very well from their channel.
I agree from what I have heard from people working with similar YT stars. What is surprising is the incredible amount of cross promotion done between seemingly unaffiliated stars in an effort to gain subscribers/viewers. From the rough description I heard about, it seemed somewhat scammy/gross to me but I don't know enough to make a definitive judgment. Do you have any thoughts or information about that?
YouTubers definitely cross promote each other, but it's not nearly as disgusting as you would think. In many ways, growing a new YouTube channel is very similar to growing a startup (these people are essentially startups themselves). At this point in the game, it's almost necessary to know someone more popular than you in order for your channel to get noticed.
I've worked with many YouTubers (I'm Ryan's co-founder), and can honestly say that they are nice people who appreciate each other's talents and want to help others like them succeed. They have a very strong sense of community, and they all know (or at least know OF) each other. Of course there are a few who do nasty things to try to get ahead, but those are by far the minority, and generally don't do well in the long run.
Lol...just watched one, its was funny. I think its more like we don't know what will make us laugh sometimes. I don't consider this bad taste, look at Napolean Dynamite, i really hated it but i have friends that loved it and it is now one of those cult movies. I would say that there is no accounting for the extremes of taste.
That being said i will not be tuning in to the annoying little orange again.
Just be cute (preferably hot), either very smart and/or funny or... very dumb yet funny. But in order of being dumb you must qualify for the first criteria. Yup. CASH!
How is that what seems to me to be the worst content is constantly touted as "featured" content? Is this a reflection of what people are actually interested in or is there something else going on behind the scenes?
This doesn't seem like a lot of money to me. If there's only 10 people on one of the top 10 biggest websites in the world who are breaking 100K for creating content, which is the site's value, then the only ones making out are the owners of the site (google).
Conversely, take the app store as a content platform. There's hundreds of iphone developers who are breaking 100K. Granted, the skills required are different, but ROI on the iphone platform seems much better.
the amount of "niche" hilarious/awesome/interesting video on YT and other video sites is a huge factor (along with blogs and HN/Reddit-like sites) why I don't watch traditional TV anymore. It tends to be better, I'm not forced to watch ads, it tends to be edgier/uncensored, it's more personal and interactive, and it's also more asynchronous and on-demand, easier to time-shift, place-shift and device-shift to suit the moment.
I'm not sure there's a lot of correlation between the two. It seems to have more to do with networks dynamics and timing than the quality of the video. Of course, those matter in any market, but YouTube seems to be particularly fickle--- hits are determined by whether you're one day early or late to a particular trend, by whether the first 5 people to see a submission to reddit voted it up or down, etc.
I think it is telling that those are the most popular youtube channels. Hint : if you like watching people acting retarded or treating you as if you were retarded, then you probably are.
In addition to what they make from ads, a lot of YouTubers will get paid to make videos that involve a product, etc. For some (most?) that is actually a larger source of income than the AdSense.
Also there are many many more than 10 YouTubers who are doing very well from their channel.