Category Archives: Uncategorized

VidAngel.com – Imagine YouTube WITHOUT F-Words Or Cleavage Thumbnails…

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Imagine if you could browse YouTube without ever hearing the F-Bomb, or seeing another stupid cleavage thumbnail? VidAngel is on a mission to make that possible.

VidAngel is an idea that my brothers and I had about a year ago when we were still at Orabrush. Why had no one had built a browser app plugin that would filter out sex, nudity, swears, and graphic violence on streaming video? We decided it was a problem we wanted to solve.  A year later, and a lot of long nights, long talks with legal teams, and saving up cash, we just went public with VidAngel. VidAngel mutes profanity and skips sex, nudity and violence right while you are watching your online video.

 

Clean up all of Hollywood

(thousands of filters coming):

Our first goal is to clean up every TV show and Movie available on Google Play.

Eventually we want to do the same for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Vudu and others, but VidAngel is starting with Google Play because it has a good selection (including new releases) and we understand how to use Google for marketing better than anyone (see 18 million views on our Orabrush ad, 7 million views on Orapup, and 19 million views on our PooPourri ad).

Clean up all of YouTube

(hundreds of thousands of filters coming):

If you are a member of the VidAngel community  you will be able to use your VidAngel app to filter any video on YouTube for your kids, adjust filters that others have created, and have access to the entire communities filters for FREE. Think Wikipedia for YouTube filters. Our goal is to have every popular YouTube video filtered so you don’t run into soul destroying landmines while enjoying YouTube.

YouTube has always attracted foul mouthed vloggers. R-rated language is common.  But more recently YouTube has started to allow nudity and sexual content onto the site. Traditionally YouTube has not been known for family friendliness.

There are over 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.  YouTube is now more popular than Facebook with teenagers. YouTube and Netflix account for over half of the Internet’s traffic.  There are loads of great Internet filters out there that make the web a more family friendly place, but we want to provide an option for YouTube.

Google Chromecast can Stream VidAngel to your TV

With the launch of Google Chromecast, our timing couldn’t be more perfect. Right now we are giving away a FREE Google Chromecast when you sign up for VidAngel.

 

 

 

All extreme sports businesses should be on YouTube

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YouTube is probably the single most effective marketing tool for anyone who has a product or service connected to extreme sports. Don’t believe me? Check out the examples below:

Devin Graham, my old roommate and the guy who shot the original Bad Breath Test for Orabrush, released this video two days ago. It is a promo that he did for JetLev (a ridiculously awesome water jet pack). The video will hit a quarter million views tonight and I expect it to end up with well over a million views. I want to see them do a documentary style video on the story of JetLev (like the one Devin did for Orabrush).  At $100K a pop, you might think that the YouTube audience is not the JetLev target demographic, but I believe JetLev is comparable to SegWay and it will be most used as a rental for tourists. YouTube is the perfect crowd.

GoPro gets it. They are releasing a couple of videos a week. Not only are their videos naturally viral in nature, but they are promoting them with ads as well, raking in tens of thousands of subscribers to their YouTube channel. They could get even more subscribers if they just asked for them, but GoPro is still blowing away their competitor Contour who doesn’t get YouTube.

Guns and Gear, a hack guns dealer in Georgia, started a YouTube channel one year ago. A white trash guy, with a foe Russian accent, profanes as he blasts targets with high-powered assault rifles. I am not a fan, but someone loves it because their videos have been viewed 62 million times and they are the fastest growing YouTube channel in the past 30 days. That kind of growth fills me with envy.

This is one of my favorite videos this month. Tempest Freerunning Academy just released this video to promote their new parkour training gym. I have watched the video at least 4 times.

Moral of the story: if you have a business in extreme sports without a YouTube strategy, then it is time to invest.

At least 500 YouTubers are now making their living on YouTube alone

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This brought tears to my eyes. Shaytards story is very inspiring. They paid off about $195k in debt in 4 years.  This family is making several hundred thousand dollars a year on YouTube!

YouTube is just getting started. Even though YouTube hasn’t yet been recognized in the same way, their growth resembles Facebook’s growth. If my calculations are correct then I can safely estimate that at least 500 channels on YouTube have already created full-time jobs. Orabrush’s YouTube channel alone has been the source of over 14 jobs.  I LOVE IT.

Social Marketers should attend VidCon 2011

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We attended VidCon 2010 and we will be going again this year. VidCon inspired a lot of the “Diaries of a Dirty Tongue” series that was recognized as a top social media campaign in 2010 in AdAge’s “Book of Tens”.   Last year, VidCon was completely sold out for attendees, BUT Orabrush was one of the only brands at the conference. This year it is going to be a lot more crowded. I predict that by 2012, it will be packed with every major brand.  If you haven’t put it on your calendar, get it in now.

Here is the first video we did for “Diaries of a Dirty Tongue”. It was about VidCon2010:

Interview with Rick Mathieson (part 1 and 2)

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Last week I had an Interview with Rick Mathieson. Here are the LINKS:

INTERVIEW: ORABRUSH CMO JEFF HARMON ON THE SECRETS OF A SOCIAL MEDIA SENSATION (PT. 1)


INTERVIEW: ORABRUSH CMO JEFF HARMON (PT 2) – A ‘DIRTY TONGUE’ GOES VIRAL

Rick Mathieson is an award-winning writer, author, speaker and frequent media commentator on marketing in the digital age.

Heralded as “a strategic marketing expert” by Harvard Business School”s Working Knowledge, his insights on postmodern marketing have been featured in ADWEEK, Advertising Age, Wired, Forbes and on MSNBC, CNN Radio, CBS Radio and NPR.

His research into next-generation business models has earned praise from USA Today.

Nightline ABC – The Story of Orabrush

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I love it how they contrast our ads with Super Bowl ads. It was a lot of fun to have Brian Rooney and his team here for an entire day.  The NYTimes article was awesome, but I think the fact we are a very visual company makes me like this story even more.

18 months ago, I couldn’t have imagined anything like this. Orabrush has been a blessing in my life.