[HN Gopher] I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This I...
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I Posted on YouTube Consistently for 1 Month. This Is What Happened
Author : devfig
Score : 173 points
Date : 2022-11-03 14:23 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.alexhyett.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.alexhyett.com)
| coreyp_1 wrote:
| I'm recording a series where I'm creating a new programming
| language.
|
| Shameless link here:
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZqirAnnqaCZ8lT8w7p2P...
|
| I haven't posted it here yet as a "Show HN", because I don't
| think that I'm far enough along. But I have averaged more than
| one video a day since I started.
|
| Disclaimer: This is 100% live coding in Vim. You are my rubber
| duck. I make mistakes. The most recent video will be going up
| soon, in which I track down a memory leak.
|
| Last night I added "if..then" statements, but that video is not
| finished editing yet.
|
| I don't have a massive following, and since I don't do the "fast
| paced, instant gratification" type of videos, I doubt that I'll
| ever develop a large following. But that's not the point. I
| wanted to put this out there simply because I thought that it
| should exist.
|
| Also worth noting: This is not a copy of the "Crafting
| Interpreters" book by Robert Nystrom, although I think it's a
| great book!
| pjc50 wrote:
| > This is 100% live coding in Vim
|
| I don't understand why anyone would watch this at normal speed.
| I see that live coding is a thing, but .. why?
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Same reason people watch video game players play games.
| Seeing exactly _how_ experts do things, in real situations,
| can be valuable if you 're trying to attain your own mastery.
| And entertaining if not.
| coreyp_1 wrote:
| Some people watch football, golf, or billiards. Some people
| watch poker or chess tournaments. Some people like to watch
| carpenters work or houses be remodeled.
|
| I like to watch other people code. I assume that somewhere
| in the world there's other people like me.
| kragen wrote:
| I've learned a lot of shell and editor techniques from pair
| programming that I couldn't have picked up by cloning
| projects on GitHub and might never have stumbled across on my
| own. Sometimes they're even in the manual, but I haven't read
| the whole Vim manual. (Have you?)
|
| James Hague wrote a thing about "coding as performance" 14
| years ago that I think about pretty often:
| https://prog21.dadgum.com/28.html He's talking about cases
| where getting something crappy running fast is what matters
| most: "If you can write a program to solve the problem in
| less time than the tedium of slogging through the manual
| approach, then you win." I did this yesterday: I was trying
| to track down a segfault a coworker wanted more information
| about, and so I threw together a quick Python script
| (specific to this build of this program) that reformatted
| GDB's backtrace into something a little more comprehensible.
| It's dirty and probably nobody else will ever see it, but
| many people could have learned useful things if they'd had
| the chance to watch.
|
| It can be entertaining to watch people who are much faster
| than I am.
|
| That said, I've almost never watched anyone livecoding on a
| streaming video platform or on YouTube.
| coreyp_1 wrote:
| Because sometimes it's about the journey as much as the
| destination.
|
| Also, because it shows how software development actually
| happens. It shows how to solve syntax errors. How to think
| through problems. It shows the power of the tools. It
| demonstrates my ability, and also my lack thereof. It's why I
| love programming.
|
| If you only want to see the finished product, then fine.
| There are plenty of products already in existence. But if you
| want to see how it's made, then you can now see that, too.
|
| That, and I'm amazed at the power of things like Bison, Flex,
| Doxygen, ICU, Vim, etc., and it's a way to show it off.
|
| It also shows how to approach the organization of a large
| project, and a few gems with the Makefile (in my opinion).
|
| I know it's not for everyone, but I love stuff like this!
| I've watched people live code game engines, etc., but I
| couldn't find anything about coding a programming language.
| So I'm creating it myself.
| criddell wrote:
| > I have been trying to improve engagement
|
| Does YouTube expose that metric? What does it mean?
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| "Engagement" on YouTube typically means likes/comments on your
| videos.
|
| It is well understood that the YouTube algorithm treats
| engagement as a significant positive signal to recommend your
| video to non-subscribers (or even, with enough traction, on the
| home page).
| criddell wrote:
| Does YouTube give you a numeric score for engagement?
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Not to my knowledge. Youtube's analytics generally don't
| give computed magic numbers like that, they give
| information like "number of comments per minute when the
| video released" or "average watch time" or "ratio of likes
| to views".
|
| The exact way these numbers are combined in the algorithm
| isn't revealed (and I assume is ever changing).
| dufmo wrote:
| 1 Month and already incapable of writing a normal title.
| [deleted]
| atom-morgan wrote:
| But you clicked.
| distances wrote:
| Not the GP, but I didn't click and rather decided to check
| the comments for a summary. Thankfully someone usually adds
| that for clickbait title articles.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Clicking on the headline on HN is still clicking on the
| headline.
|
| It's a mystery, people are tortured by mysteries. "How the
| Contents of this Tiny Green Box Completely Changed My
| Priorities!"
|
| There were one or more homeless teen spare-changers that
| loitered around Pioneer Square in Portland, OR in the 90s
| who would tell people riddles, and charge them for the
| answers.
| OJFord wrote:
| Can't speak for GP, but the only thing it made me click was
| the 'flag' button.
|
| (Because titles like this are the exception to the 'as in
| TFA' rule, and generally are de-Buzzfeedified either by
| submitter or mod.)
| fiat_fandango wrote:
| As an educated person, it's actually insane how hard it is to
| create click-bait / engaging thumbnails and titles.
| jerf wrote:
| You may be doing it wrong, no sarcasm nor insult intended.
| You shouldn't be sitting down and racking your brain to
| generate one from scratch. You build up a set of functional
| templates, then poke over the templates for which one happens
| to fit this video best. It's one step up from the classic Mad
| Libs game [1], except you can tweak the stock phrases a
| little bit, too. I fully expect that all the biggest
| YouTubers either have, or have had, a literal list of title
| templates to use. You can of course build your list up in
| about 15 minutes of doomscrolling YouTube. (Possibly without
| being logged in.)
|
| The clickbait is the result of an evolutionary process. You
| can't beat it _de novo_ , you can only harness it.
|
| It's one of the reasons it's so infuriating to some of us. "I
| Clicked This Link And You Won't Believe What Happened Next!"
| + Shocked Face is so easy it's almost insulting.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Libs if you don't know
| this cultural reference.
| falcolas wrote:
| The sad state of headlines and video titles.
|
| Even Veritasium, an otherwise reputable channel, has jumped
| this shark.
| bradlys wrote:
| They explained in a video why they do it... Most creators are
| explicit in why they do it. If they didn't - their channel
| wouldn't reach as far as it did otherwise.
| falcolas wrote:
| Oh, I completely understand why they did it. And why they
| have the thumbnails of a person looking shocked at whatever
| the subject matter is.
|
| But I hate it. The change is a tangible downgrade that
| cheapens the channels who do it. I'm glad for them that
| they have a larger reach, but I'm no longer a part of that
| reach because I can't stomach the chintzy thumbnails and
| titles designed to appeal to first-graders. I voted with my
| feet on that change.
|
| Maybe that's just me.
| blondin wrote:
| same here. i straight up ignore these videos, no matter
| who posted it.
|
| if you have to have an arrow pointed to something in your
| thumbnail. or have to make a shocking face, you do not
| value me or my time.
|
| there are many other videos to watch. i have ignored many
| that follow this rather dumb trend. and i still can get
| to the bottom of my watch later, guys.
| bradlys wrote:
| I find this as childish as to not read a book because it
| doesn't have a flashy cover.
| falcolas wrote:
| As you pointed out above, presentation matters. Quite a
| bit. The tricky bit is that "matters" works in both
| directions. And the only method I have - that any of us
| has - when it comes to discouraging clickbait... is not
| to click.
|
| Choosing to use what agency I have available to me is
| hardly childish.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| It's more like not reading a book because it has a flashy
| cover. Sex sells but I won't buy a book about physics
| that has a woman in a bikini on the cover. It's about the
| signals you send as an author.
| bradlys wrote:
| It's just as childish because you're making assumptions
| about the content based off a cover.
|
| It's no different.
|
| Something something MLK quote something something.
| jerf wrote:
| "Don't judge a book by its cover" is a lie-to-children;
| there's some truth to it, but if I were making a list of
| sayings we tell to children and how truthful it is, this
| one would actually be rather far down my list. Judging
| things by their cover is generally effective. The horde
| of exceptions stampeding into your mind and encouraging
| you to hit "Reply" and start to list them are exactly
| that: Exceptions.
|
| There are, admittedly, rather a lot of them. I look over
| at my bookshelf and I could show you some myself.
| Nevertheless, it really is a better heuristic than a lot
| of people would care to admit.
|
| Part of this is because covers have a lot of
| intentionality in them. People deliberately imbue them
| with information. I don't ignore them. Mind you, I might
| not come to the _intended_ conclusions... to take one
| clear example, the intentional message being sent by
| romance book covers and the one I receive are fairly
| different. Nevertheless, in the end, both I and the
| publisher are generally satisfied by the transaction,
| even if they might prefer I buy it anyhow, I 'm not in
| the target audience and they know that.
| falcolas wrote:
| They made no assumptions about the content. They simply
| expressed a distaste for the cover.
|
| To continue the analogy, there are plenty of physics
| textbook manufacturers, and not all of them decide to use
| sex to sell their textbooks. Choosing to not engage with
| a blatant marketing tactic and picking another textbook
| is a perfectly valid action for someone of any age.
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is bad news for the Britney Spears Guide to
| Semiconductor Physics (yes, google it)
| MisterSandman wrote:
| To be fair, Veritasium lost a lot of credibility with their
| Waymo-sponsored self driving video.
| azangru wrote:
| And there are so... many... ads... on that page
| [deleted]
| pirate787 wrote:
| Thanks for the great post! I'm curious - roughly how much income
| does this level of engagement generate on YouTube?
| JonathanBuchh wrote:
| > When it comes to YouTube monetization you need to have 1,000
| subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over a 12-month period.
|
| > As you can see I am not there yet by a long shot!
| zagrebian wrote:
| Why does this web page need JavaScript to turn on the lights? The
| text is unreadable without it.
| asicsp wrote:
| I started posting videos regularly from March this year (probably
| had 10-20 subscribers before, now have 150+)
|
| > _If you watch some of my earlier videos there are a lot of
| "um's" and "ers"...started with writing full scripts_
|
| I trained myself to go silent instead of ums/aahs/ers. I then
| changed how I recorded videos a bit so that I can simply use
| https://github.com/noisetorch/NoiseTorch to remove all the silent
| portions.
|
| > _Writing full scripts did have the benefit that they could more
| easily be converted into blog posts._
|
| I'm kinda opposite. I was already consistently blogging and have
| now started adding videos (mostly for short tip posts, haven't
| tried for longer posts yet).
| majewsky wrote:
| > I trained myself to go silent instead of ums/aahs/ers.
|
| As someone struggling with the same affliction, might I ask how
| you trained for that?
| soared wrote:
| You can start out by adding purposeful pauses. At the end of
| a point you want to really hit hard, build in to your script
| you literally standing there and just thinking
| "pause,pause,pause,pause". Then you get more comfortable
| doing it and can add it in with differing lengths where
| needed. Eventually with work you'll start replacing ums with
| pauses.
|
| Also, purposefully slowing down can help since you likely
| talk too fast when nervous anyway.
| delecti wrote:
| Not the OP, but for me it just took a bit of mindfulness
| while presenting, and the realization that your pauses seem
| _way_ more unbearably long to you than they do to your
| audience.
| devfig wrote:
| Yes that's a good tip. I have been using the app recut to cut
| out all the pauses and unwanted bits.
| bombcar wrote:
| For those doing this, be sure to check the settings and have
| someone watch the result - if you're "showing screen" it can
| be fine but if you're "showing face" and the end result makes
| you look like you're flickering in and out of existence and
| spazzing, it can be entirely distracting.
| asicsp wrote:
| Good point about showing screen vs face differences. I do
| screen recordings - it is a bit jarring sometimes even
| after adjusting how I record taking into account that I'll
| be pruning silent parts.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I appreciate the author's enthusiasm for their subject, but
| titles like '8 Data Structures in 10 minutes' make me lol.
|
| Practically speaking the engagement-centric approach this post
| appears to advocate for is likely to fail in the long run, if the
| goal is to build something lasting and not just a short-term
| experiment. For example, one of the more successful and lasting
| computing tutorial Youtubers is TheCherno, basically focusing on
| C++ and game engines and graphics. Clearly, a lot of effort goes
| into each post, and even though they're perhaps not as frequent,
| over time they do very well:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChernoProject
| dmix wrote:
| I found the same thing when I was blogging and also running
| marketing for my small business.
|
| How successful it was was almost directly dependent on my time
| commitment. These sorts of things almost always have a
| compounding sort of growth that benefits from lots of attention
| in a consistent timeframe.
|
| The algorithms are also primed to show users something they
| already recently searched for or a profile you recently watched.
|
| The odd content will rank well on Google and have maybe ~1-10yrs
| of extended viewership or traffic. But today's internet rewards
| newness.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| This seems to encourage quantity over quality. I just imagine
| writing frequent blog posts and think the quality of insight
| (not writing, necessarily) would be inversely related to
| frequency of publishing.
|
| This makes me think a text generating AI would (sadly) be a
| highly effective tool. I say "sadly" because I think about the
| front page of google's search results for something and all you
| see are meaningless blog posts which are written with buzzwords
| to satisfy SEO.
| agentofoblivion wrote:
| I would be cautious about going down this road. For context, I
| have YT channel with >12k subscribers that is also for technical
| content. When I was similarly early on, I found myself in a
| similar place, thinking a lot about growth and metrics. I came to
| realize that I was playing the game that YT wanted me to play, to
| their benefit.
|
| Since chasing "more" never ends, and every surpassed hurdle
| results in yet another one in the distance, it can quickly lead
| to burnout and asking yourself questions like, "why am I even
| doing this?". Worse, focusing too much on the metrics can cause
| you to do things that are ultimately counter-productive. For
| example, making a ton of videos optimized for clicking so that I
| could get 1M subscribers and monetize with ads is clearly a thing
| YT would like me to do. But to do that, you lean a little more
| into click-baity things, and start choosing topics based on their
| likelihood of being successful from a metrics perspective. And
| since frequency matters, you maybe cut corners on videos because
| it often makes more sense to put out more of lower quality than
| less of high quality if the objective is maximizing metrics. But
| then what are you left with, and are you proud of it?
|
| If I could do it again, I would spent more time on answering the
| "what's it for?" question, and then ignore the metrics unless
| your answer ends up being, "To become the Mr. Beast of X". In my
| experience, the best benefits have been 1/ the serendipitous view
| that impresses someone and leads to a real-world opportunity and
| 2/ pride and reputational benefits in having the _best_ video on
| a particular topic that then becomes the standard, and adds lots
| of value to lots of people. Those benefits are realized by taking
| care and making the best videos you possibly can, not by
| optimizing the metrics.
| devfig wrote:
| Thank you for the warning. Yes it can get pretty addictive
| checking the numbers all the time. I have no intention of
| becoming the next Mr Beast so there is no worry there. I have a
| big list of technical topics I want to cover but there is
| definitely a worry that no one will watch them. I have been
| releasing 2 videos each week but I will likely cut this down to
| 1 once I have grown a bit more. Otherwise, I can definitely see
| it leading to burnout.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| Almost all channels, even the ones technically focused, are now
| using clickbait thumbnails to the point that I installed a
| firefox add-on to replace the original thumbnail by a random
| thumbnail from the video. Not always at the advantage of the
| youtuber...
|
| > "To become the Mr. Beast of X"
|
| Not knowing Mr Beast this sentence sounds more like a pornhub
| advice :D
| HaZeust wrote:
| I think Mr. Beast is a billion-dollar brand now, I'm
| surprised his name hasn't crossed ways with you before.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I've been on YouTube for as long as YouTube has existed,
| but mostly use it to watch music videos, movie trailers,
| the video versions of podcasts I listen to, and sometimes a
| tutorial for DIY stuff I'm trying to do around the house.
| The only place I have ever even seen the name "Mr. Beast"
| is on Hacker News, and since I have never read those
| threads, I have no idea who he is or what he makes videos
| about.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| He is currently the 7th most subscribed to YouTube
| channel, and the second most subscribed to if you're
| caring more about individual, personality driven channels
| than broader ones.
|
| That you've never run into him on YouTube speaks to how
| the recommendation system works; given what you've
| watched, there's not a lot of reason to recommend him to
| you, so even though he's _extremely_ popular, he 's not
| clogging up your feed.
| moron4hire wrote:
| The announcement that he was the highest-paid YouTuber was
| literally the first time I had heard of him as a YouTuber.
| I had occasionally heard reference to his name on some
| other social media platforms, but never in any context that
| made me curious enough to find out what was going on.
|
| I'm not a huge YouTube user. But I'm not a complete
| neophyte. I probably only go on about once a week. I've
| been on the site for... 14 YEARS?!
|
| WHAT THE HELL?!
|
| Anyway. YouTube is well known for keeping people in very,
| very specific bubbles. Those bubbles are so strong, you
| will have a very hard time to get out of them even if you
| don't want to be in them!
|
| Still trying to figure out how to get YouTube to stop
| suggesting videos of people streaming their _crappy_ Call
| of Duty sessions. I don 't want to watch any game
| streaming, let alone CoD, and YouTube keeps sending me
| videos of people acting like they're gods when really they
| were just lucky this one time, or obscuring what really
| happened, or straight up cheating. It's maddening.
| Downvotes do nothing. Editing my history does nothing. I'm
| stuck in this incredibly stupid bubble.
| [deleted]
| JadeNB wrote:
| Slightly de-clickbaiting:
|
| First-level table of contents:
|
| > Subscriber growth
|
| > Views
|
| > Watch Time
|
| > Impressions, Click-Through Rate and View Duration
|
| > How I am improving my videos
|
| > What's Next?
|
| Opening paragraphs, paraphrased:
|
| > It takes a long time to grow on YouTube, and I knew this going
| in but I have been pleasantly surprised with my growth in the
| first month.
|
| > Before October 2022, I had posted 3 videos, none of which had
| many views and I had a total of 51 subscribers.
|
| > As of 1st November, I now have 135 subscribers.
| ttpphd wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| One sentence summary: Posting consistently for 1 month
| increased subscriber count from 51 to 135.
| swighton wrote:
| I've found that content quality is much more important than
| posting consistency. This is because there's a nonlinear
| relationship between views & quality. For example a video that is
| twice as good might be capable of getting 10 times as many views.
| If that's true it implies that (within reason) spending more time
| to make a better video is the best strategy. Intuitively this
| makes sense: would it be better to make 1 mediocre video every
| day consistently OR 1 really good video every 1-3 weeks that gets
| 100x the views.
|
| I've heard the argument that YouTube rewards consistency, but I
| am anything but consistent with my videos [1](every 1-3 months)
| and I haven't noticed any negative consequences.
|
| [1] YouTube.com/stuffmadehere
| FemmeAndroid wrote:
| This was my first thought as well. However, it's worth noting
| that your videos are _exceptionally_ good. I drop everything to
| watch one when it comes out.
| totalview wrote:
| This is solid gold coming from a YouTube Legend. Thanks for the
| comment, love your content.
| dxbydt wrote:
| This is absolutely crazy. OP is like asking for acting advice
| from internet randos. Suddenly, Al Pacino drops in!
|
| stuffmadehere is famous shit. Middle schoolers watch it in the
| classroom because the science teacher plays this. He has
| millions of subscribers & each show ( I refuse to call it
| video. Its a proper show. ) is very professionally done. It's
| so popular, if you were in India & you were speaking in Hindi,
| you would legit be on TV. Over there people are glued to
| content because some guy is explaining centrifugal force in
| hindi with some string & tincan. Meanwhile, look at your
| production values! Huge respect. Thanks for everything you do.
| ebbflowgo wrote:
| BoppreH wrote:
| Perhaps it varies by category. I think your "mad-science" niche
| disproportionally rewards quality because (1) there's a high
| barrier to entry, (2) each project stands up on its own, and
| (3) your channel already has a positive loop of subscribers.
|
| You have infinitely more Youtube experience than I do (love
| your videos, by the way!), but maybe those other categories are
| in your blindspot, just like they are not in my Youtube
| suggestions.
|
| I'd expect vloggers, celebrities, podcasters, game streamers,
| political pundits, etc to benefit more from consistent uploads.
| More videos = more rolls of the viral dice, and furthermore
| frequency is _required_ for building up fame, parasocial
| relationships, or just reliably filling the silence during
| commute.
| lukasb wrote:
| "reliably filling the silence during commute" - this has
| never made sense to me. There are an infinite number of
| creators I can subscribe to. So I can always have unwatched
| content available just by subscribing to creators with high
| signal-to-noise ratio.
|
| Do normal users tend to just subscribe to a smaller number of
| channels, so they want channels that publish a lot?
| narush wrote:
| Your videos are awesome. I've watched every one of them
| multiple times. I love when you go deep into the technical
| details of the problems / solutions you run into (especially
| with your code) -- especially in _integration hell_.
|
| I'm sure not-your-entire audience is interested in these
| things. Have you ever considered making a second channel where
| you go into more detail about the details of the technical
| problems / solutions you run into? The videos could be a lot
| less well produced, I'm just desperate for the info.
|
| Thanks for all you do!
| NoahKAndrews wrote:
| https://youtube.com/c/StuffMadeHere2
| areoform wrote:
| Hey there, would you be open to discussing how you became such
| an amazing maker?
|
| I work with an org that funds and supports a really large
| community of young makers (mostly young people in their teens,
| but we also have folks in their mid-twenties and beyond). I'd
| love to talk to you about how you honed your skills. A lot of
| them watch your videos and I suspect they would be really
| interested in reading about how you honed your skills and
| achieved your currently glorious skillset. (I would be too!)
| t3hGrandPoobah wrote:
| yes, agreed the "consistency" thought leadership is mostly
| published by Mids who have never done any real work themselves
| metayrnc wrote:
| You post extremely good quality videos. I agree with your
| arguments. Every time you drop a video, I make sure to watch
| it. It would not be the case if you posted everyday.
| devfig wrote:
| Wow I see what you mean. I was planning on cutting down to 1
| video a week once my channel had grown a bit but I can see from
| your channel that quality > quantity so I might do that sooner!
| Thank you.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Brother you literally are the definition of quality over
| quantity. I've never seen anyone else rise so fast in the
| youtube world as yourself, especially on the back of only a
| handful of videos. Really incredible work from a truly
| inspiring engineer. Keep it up.
| pchristensen wrote:
| Your new videos are a family night event at my house, complete
| with popcorn. There are so many great ones, but the chainsaw
| robot is our favorite -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix68oRfI5Gw. That and the
| "robotically perfect mullet." And we all say "Oh wa cool."
|
| In short, thank you for your awesome videos and take your time
| to keep the quality so high!
| saalweachter wrote:
| There's also a confounding factor in pushing yourself to do a
| lot of videos all at once: you may get some good practice in.
| Are you getting more views after a few months of consistently
| publishing videos because you are consistently publishing
| videos, or because you are getting better at making interesting
| videos?
| _benj wrote:
| It's good to see you here! I totally agree with quality there
| (although not from personal experience) but taking as an
| example your videos, Idk how you first came up with the idea of
| the "wife mode" but now your video have gone from something I
| totally nerd on to something I call my wife to watch with me,
| which she does with minimal eye rolls and actually enjoyment
| from her part! Haven't found that many other maker channels
| that I share with her (with the obvious exception of Simone
| Giertz!)
|
| Keep up the good work!!
| colanderman wrote:
| Not a maker channel, but Technology Connections fills a
| similar niche in our household. Simultaneously in-depth
| enough for me and accessible and interesting for my wife.
| walty wrote:
| For most of us, making content consistently leads to making
| more top quality content over time, through helping us increase
| our skills:
| https://www.google.com/books/edition/Atomic_Habits/XfFvDwAAQ...
| sjm-lbm wrote:
| I don't know if this is true, but I've heard the algorithm has
| changed over the years - in 2015 during peak Vlog, there wasn't
| much content on Youtube made by creators targeting (and putting
| professional-level effort into) the platform, so the algorithm
| rewarded creators that were creating enough content to really
| hold a user on Youtube.
|
| Now, there's enough content that the algorithm favors quality
| more, because YT can more easily keep a user by recommending
| similar content from a different creator of a higher quality.
|
| .. again, no idea if that's true, but it does feel like it
| makes sense.
| acchow wrote:
| I wonder if Youtubers are mistaking consistency with quality?
| They don't realize that their consistent production is
| _causing_ an increase in their quality (via practice /learning)
| rozap wrote:
| Your videos are on the extreme end of the quality distribution.
| I wonder if your observation applies as much to the middle part
| of the bell curve.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Some popular videos are just random off the cuff talking with
| no effects or editing. It's not so simple...
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Then there's channels like stuffmadehere that consistently
| produce hit videos, due to their superb quality. It's not
| luck if you can do it many times over.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| > I've found that content quality is much more important than
| posting consistency
|
| If anyone is giving you any kind of marketing or content
| distribution advice, and at no point do they mention product-
| market fit, or content quality, then they are selling you a
| dream.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| As someone who spends a bunch of time paying attention to the
| YouTube meta, "consistency" is a virtue that's been professed
| for a long time, but YouTube has been pretty clear that it's
| not a factor in how recommendations work.
|
| I still think it's decent advice for new YouTubers, because you
| only get better at a thing by doing it a lot, and over time.
| The value of consistency isn't in the algorithmic properties,
| but instead in developing the skills that lead to quality.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Another value in consistency is that when people are browsing
| aimlessly, they know when they can check your channel for new
| content. If I check some channel for new content a few times
| and there is none (and no indication of any coming), I will
| simply forget about it. Not intentionally. Someone else who
| posts predictably will have captured my idle time.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| As my sibling says, this may be how some users use youtube,
| generally these views ("channel page views" is the term
| used in the analytics) are a small minority of overall
| views.
|
| In fact, this sort of behavior you're talking about is one
| of the reasons why "the algorithm" is a thing. If there's
| something you'd like to watch, but you've forgotten about
| it, it's YouTube's job to surface it to you, even if you've
| forgotten. This is one of the reasons why browse is the
| default view and not your subscribers feed, for example.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| This is not how most views occur, please don't hurt
| yourself to produce content regularly just to satisfy this
| edge case.
| wingworks wrote:
| I would agree with that. I've been posting consistently every
| day, at the same time for 8 months and hasn't seen much
| return. But my vids are highly automated and pretty niche
| weather content, so wouldn't expect it to go crazy either.
| https://www.youtube.com/@aussiefromspace
|
| I'm pretty happy, as a user that YouTube no longer pushes
| constancy over quality.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| It's also worth noting that the algorithm is not the only
| meta and posting consistently might be more or less expected
| depending on your audience, topic and so on.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Absolutely, each audience has different expectations for
| what "quality" even means. Though I'm not really sure where
| "the algorithm" (I kinda hate how anthropomorphized it is)
| doesn't play into even in your scenario. Browse and Search
| are the two largest ways to grow traffic, and both are
| algorithmic to different degrees... unless you just mean
| like, growth is not a goal on YouTube for you, in which
| case, yeah you can just ignore all of this for sure.
|
| But the language used around this topic is often implying
| that "the algorithm" will "punish you" if you like, post
| too often, post too little, post at different times... and
| I personally believe that that is empirically demonstrated
| to be not the case, and is also something YouTube (at least
| lately, I've only been paying close attention for a year or
| two) has never implied is important. And they've said
| things that imply that it's totally irrelevant,
| recommendation wise.
| justinator wrote:
| As a consumer of YouTube videos, I couldn't agree with you
| more.
|
| I think the consistency of popping out videos on the regular is
| about working the algorithm and grinding out content for views,
| and with those views: ad dollars. I've seen too many channels
| just turn into churning really awful, boring, long videos with
| little in the way of direction in the hopes you'll just
| mindlessly watch it. But I think the math just works out better
| (marginally) to pump out low-effort, low-value content more
| often than for example, what you are creating. And like I said:
| blame the algorithm.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I've found that content quality is much more important than
| posting consistency.
|
| I know "The Algorithm" gets a lot of hate, but surfacing
| quality-over-quantity content is one place where recommendation
| algorithms excel over pure chronological feeds.
|
| When I switched Twitter to chronological mode, I had to
| unfollow several people because they posted all day long. The
| most valuable Tweets I wanted to see were buried in the noise.
| The algorithmic feed is far from perfect, but it does a good
| job of highlighting posts I've missed from people I've
| interacted with previously. It takes some time to see the
| algorithm with enough likes and interactions, and it won't work
| if you never click the like button, but it's actually not half
| bad once it's up and running.
|
| Reddit is another platform where quantity over quality
| prevails. If you click through to the post history of people
| who get content to the front page, it's basically a firehose of
| posts using recycled content and slightly altered headlines to
| as many subreddits as they can get away with. Eventually one of
| them clicks and rises to the top, but by that point the
| headline is often so mangled into clickbait that it doesn't
| accurately reflect the content of the article. Redditors don't
| really read articles, though, so it doesn't matter. Spam away.
| luckylion wrote:
| > I know "The Algorithm" gets a lot of hate, but surfacing
| quality-over-quantity content is one place where
| recommendation algorithms excel over pure chronological
| feeds.
|
| Do you find great content on youtube via YT's
| recommendations? I practically never have, everything I like
| I've stumbled upon on other sites where something is
| discussed and a channel is mentioned, or from someone who's
| work I like mention someone else. YT's recommendations have
| always been garbage for me, so I eventually just hid them
| completely because it's mostly noise.
| Quillbert182 wrote:
| I personally have found some excellent content through YT's
| recommendations. For example, the algorithm introduced me
| to LockPickingLawyer, Taskmaster, and Jet Lag: The Game.
| Jach wrote:
| It's nice that Twitter allows you to switch modes. Normally
| I'm in chronological mode, but I can go to the
| mobile.twitter.com site on desktop too, and that is in the
| "Algorithm" mode. So it's pretty easy to just swap and see if
| I'm feeling in the mood to let the algorithm discover new
| things for me / catch some interesting replies or likes of
| people I follow / etc. It'd be interesting to go full power
| user with more customization and easy swapping, but such
| features don't tend to last if they ever get implemented in
| the first place...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > If you click through to the post history of people who get
| content to the front page, it's basically a firehose of posts
| using recycled content and slightly altered headlines to as
| many subreddits as they can get away with.
|
| I've seen this too. It seems like a lot of work and I'm
| unclear what the reward is. It isn't like most of that
| content is pimping some brand of burger or something...
| easrng wrote:
| It makes your karma go up which is appealing, probably half
| the reason I keep coming here tbh.
| koinedad wrote:
| Those seem like pretty encouraging numbers. I have recently
| started from scratch and it has been very slow going.
| 1024core wrote:
| I've been contemplating creating YouTube videos like the Khan
| Academy ones, but for a niche area. The aim is to help students
| understand the subject, so I don't need a camera. But I do need
| some form of a touch device where I can write, draw graphs, show
| text, etc. and just record that. And there will be no
| monetization.
|
| Anyone have any recommendations for such a setup?
| dxbydt wrote:
| This is what I use - An inswan document camera is $99. itube
| studio is $20. Connect the inswan to your laptop. Now you can
| use regular paper pencil to write, draw graphs, show text,
| pictures etc. Use PhotoBooth to make a video, which is an mov.
| Then use itube studio to convert it to "Youtube" mp4, which has
| the right codec etc, & then upload to youtube.
| more_corn wrote:
| I started ignoring clickbait. This is what happened.
| bombcar wrote:
| Post content consistently. Listen to the comments posted (you
| have so few views it's easy to do). Adjust things slowly and keep
| plugging along.
| CM30 wrote:
| YouTube is definitely a platform where posting very often on a
| consistent basis is the easiest way to succeed there.
|
| But at the same time it's also one where becoming successful
| often means suffering from crippling burnout, since it's very
| difficult to keep that schedule up without sacrificing everything
| else in your life, and forcing yourself to post content when you
| really didn't have any good ideas left. I know a lot of people
| that quit altogether because of that, or because of related
| issues (like getting RSI style hand injuries from working on
| stuff too much).
| jjslocum3 wrote:
| By way of thanking you for this informative little summary of
| issues involved in creating YouTube content, I went ahead and
| subscribed. I'd be interested to hear from you in a few days what
| impact this HN post had on your subscriber numbers.
| devfig wrote:
| Yes, I don't think I have ever had so many people on my website
| at once. Good job it is hosted with Cloudfront and S3!
|
| I am sure it will die of quite quickly but I have had 33 people
| subscribe since posting this an hour ago.
|
| So thank you for everyone that has.
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| Stop obsessing over subscriber growth.
|
| Youtube is comprised of one big ocean and a land with millions of
| tiny lakes: 1. A homogenous demographic that drives the growth of
| most major channels 2. A heterogenous demographic of niche
| hobbies and educational material
|
| Your channel can never go viral if you cater to group 2. Each
| interest group is tiny. At best, you will get some of group 1
| watching your niche channel out of osmosis.
|
| Group 1 is mostly children. Despite what youtube reports, most
| billion-view videos are kids videos. Most users are children.
| There is a reason Beluga, pewdiepie, and Mr.Beast are top
| channels. If you aren't hawking that sort of thing, youtube is
| not a good market for you to grow in.
| fiat_fandango wrote:
| Thanks for writing about your experience! I think too many
| educated / computer science focused creators get demotivated when
| they see the kind of low brow "viral" content that's plaguing
| youtube currently (yes, I mean Mr. Beast). Mr. Beast type content
| is to me more mind numbing than TikTok - it makes creators like
| Logan Paul and low brow comedy podcasts look like academics in
| comparison.
|
| I recently started dipping my toes in AI again, even building
| some tooling for GPU deployments for stable diffusion etc after a
| friend (less technical) ended up with a GPU mining farm that was
| burning a $60k hole in his pocket every month when ETH mining
| dried up.
|
| As a result, I found a curious niche and started making
| admittedly not very good videos of me attempting to create more
| approachable AI text to image content for a slightly less
| technical audience.
|
| I've been pleasantly surprised by how warm, interested and
| excited my small audience has been.
|
| If anyone would like to check out the channel here's a link -
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCttqpACIkQqh83L2cHrY9Gg
|
| I'm working on some internal projects as a part of my channel, a
| big part are some active developments with the Stable Hoard
| project.
|
| Edit - goes without saying, many of my early videos are really
| bad, my speech is hard to follow etc. Ironically since I'm full
| remote, this has actually helped rehab my speech a bit and give
| me something technical outside of work to do sort of creative
| things with. I'd be lying if I didn't intend to turn this into a
| revenue stream at some point, probably starting with a mailing
| list.
| kragen wrote:
| > _many educated / computer science focused creators get
| demotivated when they see the kind of low brow "viral" content
| that's plaguing youtube currently (yes, I mean Mr. Beast)._
|
| We're talking about a platform whose first big success was
| "Charlie bit my finger". There's some useful information there
| but it's never been Wikipedia.
| alphabetting wrote:
| >I think too many educated / computer science focused creators
| get demotivated when they see the kind of low brow "viral"
| content that's plaguing youtube currently
|
| new content creators should try to not be discourage by this.
| at youtube's scale there will always be viral lowbrow content
| because that's what the majority of general public wants to
| consume. if your content is good and consistent the relevant
| people who follows your area will eventually find it from their
| algo.
| fiat_fandango wrote:
| I certainly agree - I still think most creators underestimate
| the necessity of putting in some leg-work to understand your
| audience and attaching your channel to a niche that _has_ an
| existing audience at all.
|
| Something that I ended up doing by accident was identifying a
| niche that a) was low risk (nothing political etc), b) had
| decent reach, and c) ended up with most of my traffic coming
| from "browse" and _not_ "search".
|
| Initially, I had no idea traffic coming from "browse" was
| indicative of content that would likely drive more long-term
| value outside of "news" videos.
|
| Ironically, videos that feature community drama unfortunately
| still are my best performing videos.
| obmelvin wrote:
| I don't necessarily take issue with your point overall, but I
| have to take issue with your calling out of Mr. Beast. Have you
| seen how much money Mr. Beast gives out to people? There are
| people just buying cars with their YT money, but he puts most
| of it back into his channel & directly in the hands of everyday
| people. I really don't understand how you could say he makes
| Logan Paul look like an academic.
|
| Also, he's pretty savy with growing his audience. I'm not aware
| of very many people who translate their videos into (some)
| other languages, particularly using somewhat-well-known voice
| actors.
| bergenty wrote:
| He's giving away a lot of money and being helpful and doesn't
| seem like a bad/malicious person. Still the content is so low
| tier (not production values) and just doesn't appeal to me.
| filoleg wrote:
| Not the person you are replying to, but here is my view of
| this.
|
| From all I've seen and know about MrBeast, he is an
| upstanding guy doing great things that help others. I
| absolutely respect that and believe it is worth of praise.
|
| However, I find the content itself to be absolutely not my
| cup of tea. Not in a sense that i find it bad or distasteful.
| There are tons of other "YT philanthropy" influencers that
| make content that feels either distasteful or exploitative
| (even if it might not actually be), but his content isn't
| that. I just struggle to find it interesting enough to watch.
| I tried a few times, but it simply cannot hold my attention
| at all.
|
| This isn't MrBeast's fault, as he clearly has a massive
| audience that enjoys watching his content. It just simply
| isn't the content for me.
| fiat_fandango wrote:
| Yes, but the reason he's giving away money is _for views_ .
| It 's why charity for views is in my opinion kind of
| degenerate - arguably using poor people to make money but
| saving face because _giving away money_.
| waltbosz wrote:
| I think a more positive way to think about MrBeast's
| behavior of giving away money isn't that he's doing it for
| views, but that he's doing it for fun.
|
| There is a documentary about how actor Bill Murray will
| occasionally spend a bunch of money on a random stranger
| that he meets in public.
|
| I see this trend of rich YTers giving away free money as
| evidence that the creator economy has lowered the barrier
| to entry to philanthropy, in the same way that the assembly
| line lowered the barrier to entry to car ownership.
|
| No longer do you have to be a cutthroat oil baron to have
| enough disposable to make it rain on a stranger every now
| and then. You can just get YT rich and famous.
|
| Now, I say this having only viewed one of his free money
| videos. But from what I saw the participants were well
| treated and appeared to be having fun.
| truculent wrote:
| Mr Beast, like Willy Wonka, may well be doing things for
| the pure childlike whimsy. Was Willy Wonka the good guy?
| munificent wrote:
| I would argue that he is strictly the better guy than a
| chocolate factory owner who is otherwise
| indistinguishable from Willy Wonka but who just pockets
| all the cash instead.
| obmelvin wrote:
| I've watched and judged for myself - I disagree.
|
| How is he using "poor people"? Everyday people are "poor
| people"? I think that says more about you than him.
|
| Yes, the views fund what he gives away. But until you or I
| start dedicating our lives to making money to give away, I
| don't think either of us has a leg to stand on and
| criticize him [for this specifically].
| fiat_fandango wrote:
| https://youtu.be/YhRRny_sHYw?t=45
| bartread wrote:
| I think this is meant to be humour. Awkward and not
| particularly successful humour - distasteful humour - but
| humour nonetheless.
| Pent wrote:
| It worked for Oprah I guess
| fiat_fandango wrote:
| To be honest, Oprah's content in my opinion was miles
| better than Mr. Beast's. She was at least conducting
| interviews, having conversations etc.
|
| At least her videos weren't, "look at minecraft funny
| game - my friend made a poop sound hehe" or "omg look at
| kiddy pool filled with ORBEEZ FUN TIME"
|
| Candidly, with a hilariously not successful youtube but a
| solid career - I find it funny to imagine Mr. Beast
| "spending hours" coming up with "next level content"
| which in reality you'd be better off just paying a 7 year
| old with jolly ranchers to do.
| alexb_ wrote:
| >I find it funny to imagine Mr. Beast "spending hours"
| coming up with "next level content"
|
| As silly as it is for me to be the guy "defending Mr.
| Beast" of all people, I don't think you have any idea
| what he does.
| EricE wrote:
| Even if he was only giving away money for views (something
| I disagree with along the same lines as others) - why is
| that a bad thing exactly? How is it malicious to actually
| help people?
| devfig wrote:
| Nice I have subscribed. I think any content about AI would
| probably do well with all the hype around GPT-3 at the moment.
| Yes speaking in front of a camera is really difficult. There is
| literally hours of recordings of me trying to say the same
| thing over and over again that gets cut.
| fiat_fandango wrote:
| Thanks for the subscribe!
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| It's an interesting read, and good luck if that's what you want
| to do.
|
| But for me it feels like you work for youtube. You setup your
| room for them, Record hours of content for them, They even tell
| you you need to do it on a weekly basis if not daily...
|
| And all for no pay, Or the priviledge of getting small change and
| forever fearing being "de-monetized"...
|
| No thanks.
| wetmore wrote:
| There are so many ads on your page.
| devfig wrote:
| Sorry about that. I had Google Adsense auto ads on. Not sure if
| they turn up the number of ads based on traffic. Turned them
| right down now.
| j4pe wrote:
| It's charmingly on-theme for the title of this HN post to be a
| Youtube-style clickbait, but we should probably edit it to
| something more informative.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I've done a number of these kinds of experiments across a variety
| of platforms, and over the 1-month period, the numbers looked
| very similar.
|
| The problem is that it doesn't scale. After that first month
| honeymoon period, the numbers don't grow as fast. After 3 months,
| they basically stop growing. "Just consistently post" is not a
| sufficient recipe for "success".
| DustinBrett wrote:
| In 2021 I did a live stream every Saturday for 52 weeks straight.
| It was actually a lot of fun as I was working on my side project
| most weekends anyway and I wanted to start streaming it. By the
| end of the first year I had about 1K subscribers, but most live
| streams still got the same viewership, if not less. I'm closing
| in on year 2 now and passed 2K subs recently.
|
| I echo some of the comments here about posting videos about
| things you want and not trying to play the YouTube game. Every
| time I have tried I've felt greasy, and it rarely helped.
|
| Even for my non-live stream videos, I almost always do them all
| in 1 go with no editing. It helps me get good at speaking, is
| more natural and take a lot less time to finish.
|
| My biggest problem has been motivation and time. I feel like I
| have a lot of videos I want to discuss, but doing the videos
| requires a certain energy that I've had trouble firing up lately.
|
| For anyone interested in checking out my channel/vids:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/DustinBrett
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Big thanks for writing about your experience here, I've been
| thinking about doing this at some point for passive income,
| including livestreaming open source SaaS apps I want to build.
| This gives me a little hope! It was also good to know I need at
| least 1,000 subscribers!
| atum47 wrote:
| >= To begin with, your video is only going to be shown to your
| subscribers.
|
| Not the case for me. I have two channels. One where I post stuff
| and another where I watch stuff. The channel that watches stuff
| subscribes to the channel that post stuff. It almost never show
| my videos. I have 303 subscribers and 7 views on my last video.
|
| YouTube is broken as heck. At least 10% of my subscribers should
| be shown my videos.
| [deleted]
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| What is the "4-6 second rule"?
| steveklabnik wrote:
| The article defines it:
|
| > Generally, something should happen on screen every 4 - 6
| seconds. If you are building an entertainment channel then this
| is more like 1 - 3 seconds.
| riskable wrote:
| Do you want your life to revolve around whether or not you can
| keep the lowest common denominator entertained for 10 minutes at
| a time? Spending (maybe) hours and hours of your life every week
| doing nothing but video editing?
|
| If the answer is, "no" then you're never going to be "a YouTuber"
| (that makes enough money to live from your channel).
|
| I highly recommend doing what I do: Post videos _because you want
| to help people_ , not entertain them. Also, every now and again
| I'll post a video just because making videos _can_ be fun but it
| 's fun _for me_... Whether everyone else has fun with it is
| mostly irrelevant :)
|
| If I make a few bucks from my tutorial videos about how to make
| an analog hall effect keyboard that'd be nice but really, I made
| them so I could point people to the video series to save myself a
| lot of time explaining things in chat messages. If enough people
| use those videos to gain that skill maybe we can move the world
| off of electromechanical switch technology (aka "cave man
| switches") some day.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| You don't need a lot of editing if you produce useful content
| that's not filmed with a potato. Any time I post a car repair
| video, I get 100x the views of anything else I've done. No real
| editing is needed, other than stitching a few video clips
| together.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| This article would also make for a good video, me thinks! I
| actually tried clicking your first screenshot, thinking it was a
| video summary of the article.
| dncornholio wrote:
| YouTube does not care about the audio or video quality itself. It
| only cares about the numbers of views, likes, etc.
| r0fl wrote:
| Youtube cares about click through ratio on the thumbnail + % of
| total video watched more than everything else combined.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Quality is pretty subjective. They try to quantify what people
| like (or rather what people will _watch_ ).
| CM30 wrote:
| This is true of any platform to be honest. You could be a
| terrible writer and still do well on sites like Medium or
| Substack. Be a terrible musician and do well on Spotify or
| SoundCloud. Be a terrible artist and do well on all sorts of
| platforms.
|
| Whether people like it or not, the production values involved
| in a piece of work have only the loosest correlation to whether
| it'll do well.
| xaviel wrote:
| Great work! keep going!
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I post a new video about once a month that demonstrates a
| particular feature of my new data management system. I think
| short (5 to 10 minutes) videos are the best and focus on how to
| do one thing well. My latest one
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va5ZqfwQXWI) compares a few
| simple SQL queries on a moderately large DB table (22 columns,
| 7.6M rows) on SQLite (with and without indexes) and the same
| queries run on my system which doesn't need separate indexes
| (spoiler alert: my system is much faster).
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