In this spoken response, Tom Guarriello, Ph.D., thanks Paul for his video and discusses YouTube’s evolving revenue‑sharing model, where creators will begin to receive a portion of advertising and sponsorship income. He likens the platform’s growth to the evolution of alternative sports—from hobbyist roots to Olympic recognition—highlighting how passionate amateurs can become professional content producers. Guarriello introduces Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail” concept, explaining how digital distribution (e.g., Amazon, iTunes) enables niche products to reach audiences without the constraints of physical inventory. He argues that YouTube will similarly support both mainstream (head) and niche (tail) content, allowing advertisers to target not only large audiences but also highly influential niche creators, such as Jimmy Hook, whose unique YouTube‑film hybrid attracts dedicated viewers. Guarriello expresses enthusiasm for the creative possibilities this monetization model creates, acknowledges other community members, and shares a personal update about being in New York with his partner Karen, visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and enjoying the city.
Chapters
Hey Paul, thanks for your video response. I really appreciate it. It's not surprising to hear Chad make the announcement that the talent— we're the talent now, remember— is going to start sharing in the revenue that YouTube gets from advertising and from direct sponsoring of videos. That's the way all, as you say, that's the way all media work. I really liked your skateboard, snowboard analogy. I think it's a perfect analogy of something that started off as a hobby, as a passion, that developed into a huge business. I mean, look at alternative sports in the Olympics, for crying out loud. I mean, that would've never happened if it weren't for the real dedication of amateurs who were passionate about what they were doing. And clearly a lot of us out here are passionate about what we do, but the chances are, as you say, that professional content producers are going to naturally start showing up here even more than they have been. I mean, we know there's a lot of people who are professionals who have been making videos, but we're going to see a lot more, as you put it, the competition starts to heat up for views. I also think that there's, that there's great opportunity, however, for people to expand the way creative material gets disseminated and, and the popularity of different kinds of material. Many of you, maybe most of you, have heard about what Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, magazine called The Long Tail, and he wrote a book about it. He started off with an article, and he's blogged about it for a couple years now, going on a couple years, and then wrote a book called The Long Tail. And the long tail is simply the idea that, you know, when you walk into a bookstore, there's maybe 100,000 titles in that bookstore. And if you're looking for some obscure book about, you know, whatever, German philosophy or you know, a particular kind of skateboarding technique, the chances are that book's not going to be in that bookstore. But if you go to Amazon, there's a real good chance the book's going to be there. Why? Because Amazon is able to maintain an inventory— that's in quotes because it doesn't really— I mean, there are times when it doesn't have the books at all in its warehouses until you order them. But it can offer all those titles, millions and millions of titles, because the friction of actually having the objects, the books themselves, the cost of that friction is not baked into their business model. So what happens is that people who have very idiosyncratic, very unusual sorts of interests can now go to Amazon and get books of all kinds. Same thing happens, of course, with music. We're seeing that happening, of course, with iTunes, and happen all over the place with material that can be delivered in bits. What we, you know, that's what we do here. We deliver bits. And so when it comes now to sponsoring video content, I don't believe that what we're going to see is necessarily popularity in terms of what Chris Anderson would call the head of the long tail, the big mass audience kind of material being the only thing that's capable of generating any revenue. So because, for example, if people are interested in, in a, uh, a very, um, authentic kind of entertainment experience that is indigenous to YouTube, they might very well want to start watching Jimmy Hook. Jimmy Hook's movies are a great example of somebody who has taken the medium of YouTube and adapted it to, um, adapted film and YouTube together into a terrific entertainment experience. And, you know, thousands of people watch the Jimmy Hook movies all the time because they are that unique blend. I think we're just beginning to see the kinds of creative innovations that people can take up using YouTube as a medium. I'm sure you're right. I know we're going to see an awful lot of professional entertainers out here making videos and people who are emulating professional entertainers. And that's terrific. I think it's great. What we have here is the ability to deliver the whole curve, not just the head of the curve, all the big, you know, mass media popular kind of material, but also the material that's out here on the, on the tail, on the long tail. And I think some of that long tail will attract the kinds of people that advertisers are interested in. You know, remember, advertisers aren't only interested in getting large numbers. Sometimes they're interested in being associated with the right people. Who are the right people? Well, it depends on their business. I mean, there are times when the right person is just some— oh, Greg Solomon moment— when the right person is just some highly influential taste changer kind of a person, you know, somebody who really can influence people's ideas about what's hot and what's hip and what's smart. So that person may not necessarily have a lot of viewers but may have a very strategic position in the marketplace of ideas that makes them somebody that advertisers would be interested in. A long-winded way of saying I'm really happy to see that YouTube is, uh, becoming more clear about the direction that they're going in regarding the commercial aspects of the site. I'm personally very excited to see what's going to happen from a creative standpoint, and, you know, I just think this is great. So thanks for your video, Paul, appreciate it. And Billy Biggin, also thanks for yours. And everybody who's made— recently I've had some great, great video responses to some of my videos, and I just want to Thank everybody who's been doing that. I really appreciate it. And of course, as always, I really appreciate my subscribers, new and old. So take care, guys. Have a great weekend. Karen and I are here in our apartment in New York. You guys know that I love New York. New York, New York. The city is so nice, they had to name it twice. We're out playing today, going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We're gonna do a little shopping and probably take in a movie or two over the next day or two. So take it easy and talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
