Week Forty- Seven FaceTube Startlement

Way back when Google Video was a thing, it was the spot of choice to upload a few supporting moving picture clips of stuff for us here on Talk Audio. Then, I got that call from the Radio 2 researcher asking if there was anything ‘˜embarrassing’ about me on the Internet. She said, ‘Oh, I imagine not, what with you having a fan page on Facebook.’ Scintillatingly, I said, ‘wot?’. But regular readers will know that it was why I joined FB myself, as well as there being a quiet little backwater of a page on there for Talk Audio. By the way, if you can be bothered to hit our Likey button, it’d be a nice thing I refrain from such pleading usually, but this column’s all about it, hence
And while the Talk Audio FB page is by definition a reflection and one-click de-facto modern RSS feedy way of getting the new stories out to keen readers, the video thing was different. Suddenly the whole Googlepoogle thing became the owner of YouTube and Google video was finished. I started my very OWN channel, and miraculously was able to find that Presenterbloke was NOT taken and that I could have it. Talk Audio then got our own sexy video window that instead of the previous self-hosting method (that could eat bandwidth in short order) had a YouTube embed window that used theirs. TA got a video content management system, too.
So, if you hover over the MAGAZINE tab, you get a choice of drop downs appear of REVIEWS, FEATURES and TALK AUDIO TV. If you then bop that TV one, you get a page of telly goodness appear, with titles and little thumbnail images I get to pick for each video. These videos are not just in a ladder of added-by-date but rather organised into five categories of ‘˜Products’, ‘˜Show Footage’, ‘˜Bass’ and ‘˜Interviews’ as well as a general header for stuff like the Miami Thriller powerboat stuffed with JL Audio. I put most videos from the channel in but some do not go in there. One such clip was of a filly named LJ who was rapidly employed by bigger better promotional bod bosses, like major car makers, as her career took off. I met her again at Gadget Show Live, where she was working for Citroen. Anyway, some FB page called Subs R Us has found my clip of her stood up in the Project Big Black Shogun as I filmed her bum fluttering in and out of nearly-vision in the mad bass emanations of the door window of the jeep. They nicked fifteen seconds and complete with a generation-loss of quality it has gone mad on their page. They have just under 29,000 likes for the page itself and the clip has just had 211 shares and 515 likes!
And Presenterbloke where they nicked it, is itself cooking nicely. I started ‘˜monetising’ one or two of the now 382 videos and the channel has had 2.3m hits overall and just under three million minutes actually watched. I am a YouTube Partner, in that a few pence for a click here or there have actually become a tiny income stream. Quaint but delicious for what it represents.
But products remain the mainstay of the channel and thankfully, some of the biggest hitters are the headunits and product stuff I do with the Great and the Good. And while this column is a day late due to complicated reasons, I am looking forward immensely to the day tomorrow, Wednesday, as I go to Alpine’s UK HQ to do some filming there with the tech bods. If you are reading this after then, our efforts aughta be there for you to see. Like the JL Audio ones, we will do a good few and release them over the weeks up to Christmas.
My birthday is coming up soon, a decade over the Douglas Adams Number. Handmade fishing floats especially appreciated
Adam Rayner On Line Editor