Succeeding in Independent Online Media
Last year around this time, we all thought for sure that independent video makers were all just months away from making it. Someone would be first, and then the rest of us would roll along behind in this massive zeitgeist and we’d all be making $200,000 a year or something making videos. (Maybe we “all” didn’t think that. I thought it, and so did a bunch of folks I’d talk with at events.)
This year, I get into conversations all the time, usually in email, and often in desperation, about how people might make it in the independent media creation market. I believe that people will make it. Not all of us. Not nearly as many as I would’ve said at this time in 2007.
So who will succeed faster? People finding targeted projects that are immediately obvious in their fundability and their value proposition to advertisers.
Am I saying this is the best way, that this is the way it should be, that this is a great and amazing thing? Not a lick. What I am saying is that the road between not making it and making it big is a little shorter for people who have the triangle figured out: content-value to advertisers-appeal to audience.
Even then, it’s not always a slam dunk, but I think that’s probably the way it will happen for folks first.
Some of my bets for people who will get there sooner than later:
- Gimp.TV
- Bigg Success (Yes, Paul Colligan, I named an audio podcast). : )
- PulverTV (for the novelty of doing the first programmed Internet TV station).
- Gardenfork or another Rochow project, because of his quality and niche.
- EpicFU, because they’re more MTV than MTV these days.
If you’re not on this list, it’s not that I don’t think you’ll make it. I might have even forgotten that you’re also a candidate for getting there. Don’t focus on that part of the message.
The message is this: if you ask me about who’s going to make it in online media, it’s people who are figuring out the triangle, delivering something of quality, and are connecting targeted content to interested audiences.
