Monday Mike 1: Introducing…
https://open.tube/videos/watch/7dbb7517-918d-4109-baf5-678a47360507
The 1st episode of the Monday Mike vlog.
Hi. My name’s Mike and welcome to my vlog. I’ve blogged off and on for nearly 20 years, but this is my first time creating a vlog, so there’s gonna be a lot of trial and error as I get things figured out.
Now, there are a few reasons why I’m doing this. Over the years I’ve found I rarely do things for a single reason, but if you give me a bunch of reasons to do something, then chances are I’ll go ahead.
One of the first reasons is: it seems like it’s time. Cameras are cheap, broadband is ubiquitous, and there are a bunch of editing tools that are easy to use and are free. Without any of those, I wouldn’t be doing this.
The next reason is it’s sort of a New Year’s resolution. Last year I resolved to quit smoking and in April I finally did it. Alright, it’s something I’d resolved to do for years, but last year I finally managed to do it. I have similar plans and ambitions for the coming year, which I’ll talk about in a future video, but I read somewhere that if people do things publicly, and keep people informed, they’re more likely to keep going with whatever they’re doing. For me, I want to document some things I’m doing; all of the progress, and all of the missteps. Maybe some people will be inspired to do something similar.
Another thing I want to do is make a series of videos on how to do some things with tech. Some will be very specific – how to do something with a certain piece of software – while others will be generic – like an overview of certain software. Slightly related, once a month, I plan on talking about something pertaining to the Fediverse. We’ll see how it goes.
Speaking of the Fediverse, all these videos will be uploaded to PeerTube, not YouTube. If you’re watching this video on YouTube, Vimeo, or any platform that’s not connected to the Fediverse, it means someone stole my shit and posted it somewhere without my permission. The only place I’ll post them will be PeerTube, but that means they can be viewed on Mastodon, Pleroma, and places like those.
And speaking of PeerTube, one of the main reasons I’m doing these videos is to encourage other creators to move away from the corporate overlord platforms like YouTube and Instagram, and move to independent platforms like PeerTube and Pixelfed.
You wanna be an influencer? Now’s your chance.
In 2017, YouTube had over 7 BILLION videos and over 30 million users every day! This year, in 2019, if you counted all PeerTube instances combined, you’d have about a hundred thousand videos and about twenty thousand users total. But the reason I mention these statistics is because if you’re trying to become an influencer on YouTube, you’re fucked. You’re a minnow in an ocean of minnows. A tiny fish in a huge pond. If you wanna get noticed you gotta move to another pond.
YouTube was started in 2005. Imagine joining YouTube in 2007. It was still new and it was still starved for great content. That’s sort the situation with PeerTube now. It’s still early days, and there’s a lot of room for great content. If you wanna get noticed, start posting your great content on PeerTube instead of YouTube, or in addition to YouTube.
It’s not gonna happen overnight. Be patient. Be tenacious. YouTube didn’t have 30 million daily viewers in 2005. It took time for them to get that big. PeerTube is the same way. It’ll take time.
It’s called a virtuous circle or a virtuous cycle. Great content brings people to view that content. Which brings more people with great content,… which brings more viewers,… which brings more content,… which brings more viewers,… and so on.
But I digress…
Anyway, as you can tell, I’m not a fan of YouTube. I have a love hate relationship with it, that’ll probably talk about in a future video.
I think that’s all I have for now. Every Monday I plan posting MONDAY MIKE, which’ll be a vlog more or less like this one, but on the first Monday of every month, I’ll have something special. Come back in a few weeks to find out more about that.
Every Friday I plan on posting TECH TIP FRIDAY which will be a tech related video, but on the first Friday of every month will be FEDIVERSE FRIDAY which’ll have some sort of Fediverse related topic.
To top it off, I have another series planned for every Wednesday in the new year, but you’ll have to wait wait for a couple of weeks before those get started.
To keep the professional videos separate from the personal videos, they’re gonna be posted under different accounts. The tech tip videos and the Fediverse videos will be at https://peertube.social/accounts/10sm while everything else will be at https://open.tube/accounts/lafnlab.
Lafnlab is basically a personal brand. If you see a user online with lafnlab as the name, chances are it’s me.
The tech tip videos should start this week, but everything else should start in the new year.
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