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Book review - Streampunks YouTube and the Rebels Remaking Media


Streampunks 
Youtue and the rebels remaking media
by Robert Kyncl





Streampunks, named by the author of the book Robert Kyncl, are referred to the stars utilizing the Internet video platform YouTube as a medium, as YouTube is transforming the media industry. 

 Robert Kyncl is YouTube's chief business officer. He brings the audience along the story of the media transformation with three topics. 

 First of all, Strempunks. He shares the background and important moments for the rising stars's utilization of YouTube, and how these influential creators are changing the world by creating the authentic contents. Hank and John, Tyler Oakley, Lilly Singh, Bassem Youseef, Michelle Phan, Jenny Doan, Felix Kjelberg aka PewDiePie, Casey Neistat. Each of them got into YouTube and realized their talents through the medium and expressed their creativity authentically. It also details the 24/7 level of  hard work, and lack of privacy that they have to bear with. How they have to work like start-up entrepreneurs trying to come up with new contents 24/7. 

 Next, facilitators and platform providers for other creators. Patteron, Vice, Scooter Braun, AwesomenessTV. 
Jack Conte, founder of Pateron, Kickstart for musicians enables musicians to have a steady income. Quoting Jack, 'What's happening is that fragmentation of big-business media companies and the emergence of small-business media companies all over the place: podcasting, music, video. And YouTube is fueling that whole thing. He is trying to provide a reliable income for this small media businesses. Vice by Shane Smith also enables their reporters to tell their unique story from the person who experiences directly in the scene "immersionism". It represents the changes reporting point of view from talking head news reporting to embedding in setting and filming like documentary film-making. Scooter Braun discovered Justin Bieber, Psy, and continued to be discovering new talents via this new medium. AwesomenessTV is the platform to foster YouTuber and content creation on YouTube. 

 The most interesting part to me was business model with two great YouTube's pioneering examples. Partner Program and YouTube Red. YouTube's Partner program was the first program to share the company's advertising revenue with the video content creators. This enabled Streampunks to have an income, sometimes a million dollars yearly income. As for YouTube Red, Robert says historically, media industry has primarily relied on three sources of revenue: advertising, transactions, and subscriptions. CD, DVD is transactions. TV commercials is advertising. YouTube was built on video advertising. YouTube's Red was created to generate revenue via subscriptions  in 2015. It further creates opportunity for these creators to have higher income. Duel-track model: Subscriptions that lead to a significant amount of stable revenue from its highest-value customers. Advertising that monetizes everybody else. 


 I picked this book up since two of my favorite Korean YouTubers were reading this book. I am really glad I pick this up since it indeed provided me the context for Adobe new video editing app, Premiere Rush, which Adobe releases in 2018 MAX. I was introduced full of new names, which I have never heard of! That is exactly what this new changes really means. Due to the fragmentation of the media consumption trend, each of us will start looking for contents that meets their specific need. Unlike TV stars, many well-known YouTubers could easily be nobody to many other people at the same time. This new era really opens the door for yet unborn creators, and it also means equal opportunities, endless competition among providers, diverse contents for individuals to choose from. It pinpoints the importance of YouTube as a platform to mediate, spread, facilitate contents. It reminds me of the incidence of YouTuber's gun shot incidence in their headquarter office last year. 

 I am super excited about my next book, The Content Trap by Bharat Anand'. Stay Tuned! 



Interesting stats in this book: 

 Video already makes up more than half of all data usage in mobile. 
The average YouTube users spends just an hour watching music videos on YouTube a month. Compare that with the four hours of music the average American listens to a day. 
More than half the money we pay to the music industry comes from adversiting run against fan-uploaded videos. 


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