You’ve seen them, but did you know that what you were seeing was indeed an advertising web trend?
It all started with lonelygirl15, which managed to fool us all. Lonelygirl was a video blog that was actually produced by a company. In the beginning it was made to seem real, but as the story became more elaberate and internet geeks finally figured out that it was indeed a production the company in charge finaly came out into the open and admited that it was indeed all a farse. Even with that though the series still remained popular and became even more involved with their fans through discussion forums and contests to be included in the story.
Back to today, you’ll find all sorts of “Webcam girls” on youtube. You can tell that these are either produced series or are created for the purpose of ad revenue simply by the ad placement on the right and usually some sort of branding.
Here’s an example of one I saw today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT1VfrOtxv4&feature=dir
It’s an interesting form of income, and not that much different from a video podcast. I just feel sorry for all the young lads out there who may think that this is simply some girl on the net being creative. Wake up guys, there are greater forces at work here.
As Youtube continues to grow in popularity it’s interesting to see all the different content that pops up, and how people are making money from it..