Thursday, 21 November 2019
FINAL Words and Advice on You Tube/COPPA and Your Alternatives
Here is my final post on the whole You Tube and FTC and COPPA fiasco.
It's a mess. But the reactions have been, in many cases, over the top.
As previously noted those who are making the loudest noise are those who have been earning a living off of You Tube videos for years. "Back to the 9-5" (finding a job) as a title was very telling. The thing is that by using You Tube to promote their Go Fund Me and Patreon accounts some people do make quite a lot of money -not all though.
Believe me, you have to stay 'frozen' for a good few seconds to get your video thumbnail so how many times some rehearsed their "I'm in turmoil!" "I'm in pain!" and equally dramatic poses for their COPPA related videos lords know.
But the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) and "Woke" were being left out. It did not take long. "You Tube are trying to destroy FEMALE creators!" along with "You Tube targets and hammers down on female creators!" catchy titles. I dismissed those videos after a couple minutes of listening to the nonsense they were spewing out.
I have no idea wtf "You Tube targets persons of colour" came from and I lost interest.
You see, genuine YT creators who produce videos on subjects such as arts and crafts, table top gaming, terrain making, collecting and painting gaming figures, retro toys, comics and so on have been doing so and making money from this pastime/hobby never dawns on them. These "credibles" have been making videos for 8, 10 and even 12 years: some times weekly or monthly. All of them have said how bad the whole YT and COPPA is "For all of us content creators" -NOT "us persons of colour" or "We females" but the collective US.
So channel after channel is closing. Why? Well, if certain people cannot make the money from their videos they'll stop making them. Those who do this for the fun can, of course, do what I am doing, and move videos over to Daily Motion which uploads videos so quickly I had to double check they had been uploaded! https://www.dailymotion.com/hoopercomicsuk
Now my old videos are not that great but I wanted to move them to a safer platform with the aim -admittedly impossible at the moment due to uh "financial insolvency"- of uploading newer videos later. It is easy to download your YT videos so why not open up a new Daily Motion channel?
Pretty soon YT will have what it wants: thousands of millennial creators cut and pasting details to read as they look at old crimes (do you know how MANY are doing that now?); make-up and lifestyle tips, illegal uploads of TV shows and movies (YTs selection of porn videos will be safe).
Here is the thing: Face Book could open an equivalent to You Tube on its platform but, seemingly because you can upload videos to your own page, they are not bothering. In fact there are others like Daily Motion out there but none seems to be promoting themselves at a point in time when creators want to move on!
In fact, check out this article that is recent (19th November) and tells you about the You Tube alternatives -Daily Motion is top of the list.
https://twitgoo.com/best-youtube-alternatives/
There. That's it. This is how those You Tubers under threat from the FTC/COPPA should be dealing with it. Download their videos and move on and watch as, at some future point, You Tube executives suddenly realise that "The Marvel way" -in this case treating your content makers like fetid shit- is killing it's platform. Good luck with getting all the creators back!
It's a mess. But the reactions have been, in many cases, over the top.
As previously noted those who are making the loudest noise are those who have been earning a living off of You Tube videos for years. "Back to the 9-5" (finding a job) as a title was very telling. The thing is that by using You Tube to promote their Go Fund Me and Patreon accounts some people do make quite a lot of money -not all though.
Believe me, you have to stay 'frozen' for a good few seconds to get your video thumbnail so how many times some rehearsed their "I'm in turmoil!" "I'm in pain!" and equally dramatic poses for their COPPA related videos lords know.
But the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) and "Woke" were being left out. It did not take long. "You Tube are trying to destroy FEMALE creators!" along with "You Tube targets and hammers down on female creators!" catchy titles. I dismissed those videos after a couple minutes of listening to the nonsense they were spewing out.
I have no idea wtf "You Tube targets persons of colour" came from and I lost interest.
You see, genuine YT creators who produce videos on subjects such as arts and crafts, table top gaming, terrain making, collecting and painting gaming figures, retro toys, comics and so on have been doing so and making money from this pastime/hobby never dawns on them. These "credibles" have been making videos for 8, 10 and even 12 years: some times weekly or monthly. All of them have said how bad the whole YT and COPPA is "For all of us content creators" -NOT "us persons of colour" or "We females" but the collective US.
So channel after channel is closing. Why? Well, if certain people cannot make the money from their videos they'll stop making them. Those who do this for the fun can, of course, do what I am doing, and move videos over to Daily Motion which uploads videos so quickly I had to double check they had been uploaded! https://www.dailymotion.com/hoopercomicsuk
Now my old videos are not that great but I wanted to move them to a safer platform with the aim -admittedly impossible at the moment due to uh "financial insolvency"- of uploading newer videos later. It is easy to download your YT videos so why not open up a new Daily Motion channel?
Pretty soon YT will have what it wants: thousands of millennial creators cut and pasting details to read as they look at old crimes (do you know how MANY are doing that now?); make-up and lifestyle tips, illegal uploads of TV shows and movies (YTs selection of porn videos will be safe).
Here is the thing: Face Book could open an equivalent to You Tube on its platform but, seemingly because you can upload videos to your own page, they are not bothering. In fact there are others like Daily Motion out there but none seems to be promoting themselves at a point in time when creators want to move on!
In fact, check out this article that is recent (19th November) and tells you about the You Tube alternatives -Daily Motion is top of the list.
https://twitgoo.com/best-youtube-alternatives/
There. That's it. This is how those You Tubers under threat from the FTC/COPPA should be dealing with it. Download their videos and move on and watch as, at some future point, You Tube executives suddenly realise that "The Marvel way" -in this case treating your content makers like fetid shit- is killing it's platform. Good luck with getting all the creators back!
Wednesday, 20 November 2019
Blogger Safe...what? Google said so? Oh crap!!
There is an article from 2018 in which Google states that it has no plans to close Blogger:https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2018/11/not-closing-blogger-service-comments-google.html
Unfortunately you need to understand that Google...well, here is a quote from the above article:
And the article ends with:"Regardless of the reason, Google has to keep the switch “on” for small publishers and business – the users of Blogger.com can rejoice completely over the current news. However, if you are worried about the future of Blogger, switch over to an alternative CMS."
"Although Google has a long history of killing its products, the current statement shows that the tech giant will continue the Blogger site."
Oh, Google "has to" well that set me straight and calmed me down. I was being sarcastic there by the way.
Google can and will do whatever it wants and we get the short notice following denials -as with Yahoo 360, Google plus, Yahoo groups and a host of other "service providers" -You Tube is currently having channel after channel close down BECAUSE its owners had been spying on kids and using their data -illegally and they paid a hefty fine. So now creators are put into a position that they cannot mention toys, collectibles, comics or cartoons because YT has thrown everything into the mix and seriously told creators to "Go check things with a lawyer", All because they are stamping their feet after being caught doing illegal things.
The ones shouting loudest and looking as though they are about the have breakdowns are those who for years have lived opff of making YT content and linking their channels to Patreon and so on. Now they are telling everyone to jump to their Patreons to "support" them.
Reality bites.
Now, CBO moved to Blogger in 2011. There were 80 views back then as this was a back-up site. Now there have been millions of views (note Blogger has pushed the stat counter BACK to 3, 806,000 AGAIN!) but feedback -zero. Support for the blog -zero.
Adsense as a way of earning a living or at least supporting the blog is a fantasy. Twice my adsense earnings reached to £200 plus. On both occasions Adsense never paid out and after I complained the second time I was told that I was banned from using Adsense due to "activity" they would not specify. A family friendly site earning money...that HAD to be stopped. So screw Adsense.
The internet was supposed -SUPPOSED- to open everything up from comics fandom, video making and creative blogging. However, as one outlet after another is bought out and the greed sets in so the creative freedom goes and our You Tube channels are harassed (go to Daily Motion -even I am moving stuff there), our groups are deleted and blogs closed one by one as the big boys are not getting enough money.
Blogger safe? Wait until June, 2020.
That is all I am saying -because I am not being used as a mouthpiece.
Like the visitors here even care!
Tuesday, 19 November 2019
Monday, 18 November 2019
Yahoo Groups Gone. You Tube Driving Away Comic Channels...Blogger Next?
When I wrote and said that we are currently going through the Dark Ages of comics I thought I had exaggerated slightly. After all, the late Denis Gifford referred to the 2nd World War as the Dark Ages.
Yahoo 360, despite stating otherwise, closed leaving many bloggers minus all their content.
You Tube introduced the Multiversity to allow new creator content -then pulled the plug leaving a lot of newly established small businesses in trouble.
I set up my Yahoo groups around 2003 and with BritComics and spent 17 years working to make it a UK comic archive. lots of tech problems then rumours. Two weeks before Yahoo Yahoo told me that rumours about closing Yahoo Groups was false (I had actually stated that I believed Yahoo was planning to do this after it ceased to be an independent company in 2017.
Similar tech problems on Blogger resulted in my hearing from several independent internet experts that they suspected the owners -Google- intended to close Blogger.
Comics has been hit by one blow after another so no surprise there is an Age of Indifference.
Now many You Tube comic and toy collection channels are disappearing. Why? Because You Tube was spying on children in its audience which is illegal. They got hit with millions of dollars in fines. Now they have moved blame to creators on YT. Check into it as it seems the intention is to turn YT into a "Millennial;s based" channel.
Fandom is gone -as it was in the 1980s. The internet did the dirty deed as did the trolls, SJWs, anti SJWs and "Wokes".
Well, we'll see hopw Blogger goes shall we?
Sunday, 17 November 2019
Mancano dieci giorni a BilBOlbul
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, 16 November 2019
The Dark Ages of Comics or The Age of Indifference?
It never ceases to amaze me (actually it doesn't so there is your #comicbooklies moment!) how many people view my stuff but that's where it stops.
Tuesday of this week (12th?) I had to reset the CBO stats figures. For some reason the stats counter at the top of the page will not go beyond 4 million. It simply cuts back to 3,800,000. At times I note that the CBO URL is followed by be, fr, de, tw, de and so on as, presumably, Blogger -owned by Google- shifts its servers around and why they do this I leave to your imaginations. Blogger does not have a user feedback or support -since 2011 I have contacted them 25 times over issues and never received a single response and many other Blogger users will tell you the same.
Here is what my actual control panel told me at 0300 UK time:
Which would look far better on the home page though almost 4 million is nothing to be sneezed at!
Now these people will all see my art and books for sale. Nothing. My online store gets a very large number of visits but no buyers.
I was checking something on my Art Wanted portfolio and took a double take when I caught sight of the stats there:
Now over 10,000 for 2019 is VERY respectable but despite the links given..no sales.
4,863 page views on my DeviantArt page this year. No sales.
Earlier in the year, on the Face Book Black Tower page, I looked at all the internet sites listing my books and that was world wide. Many millions. No sales though. The FB page itself gets between 104-144 views per day. No one asks questions or buys books.
...I WILL finish this no matter how many times the laptop shuts down!
Now this is all a good indicator as to the health of the industry. We know Marvel and DC, Image and Dark Horse are all seeing big drops in sales -though that may very well be down to how the companies are currently being run. In the future all of this Social Justice Warrior and WOKE crap will be seen as comics "Dark Ages" when the readers became less important (and the comics) compared to being "right on" and forcing 'diversity' on an industry that never needed it -if you think it did then you have no real idea about comics and their history.
For Independents that depend on every $, or in my case every £, it is bad. There seems to be a new clique of comic book 'fan' out there: the ones I mentioned elsewhere on CBO this week who shout support for Indie comics and tell everyone that they buy them ...but never do. It gives the false impression that there ARE fans out there regularly buying the comics.
I have been, and always will be, open about the publishing side. For many, many decades double and treble book keeping, lying and much more were the common norm in comics -in the UK as well as the USA. It is a pity that other small Independent publishers do not publish their true sales so that people can see how bad things are. Okay, in the UK a lot of small press publishers fib openly -some as I witnessed myself a few years back, panicking when they were told a member of HM Taxes and Revenue was in the building! Honestly, the number of people grabbing anyone to tell them "I'm selling nothing!" was amusing.
For my part I lowered the prices of books to the point that some (so long as not sold in the US which taxes me!) will only make me 50p to £1.00 to encourage sales. Not the slightest difference. In fact we have two choices for this new age of comics:
The Dark Ages
or
The Age of Indifference
If you can support Indie publishers do -but by buying not telling people you buy when you do not.
There goes the laptop. Stay safe!
Tuesday of this week (12th?) I had to reset the CBO stats figures. For some reason the stats counter at the top of the page will not go beyond 4 million. It simply cuts back to 3,800,000. At times I note that the CBO URL is followed by be, fr, de, tw, de and so on as, presumably, Blogger -owned by Google- shifts its servers around and why they do this I leave to your imaginations. Blogger does not have a user feedback or support -since 2011 I have contacted them 25 times over issues and never received a single response and many other Blogger users will tell you the same.
Here is what my actual control panel told me at 0300 UK time:
Page views today
|
109
|
Page views yesterday
|
285
|
Page views last month
|
11,114
|
Page views all time history
|
6,805,527
|
Followers
|
Which would look far better on the home page though almost 4 million is nothing to be sneezed at!
Now these people will all see my art and books for sale. Nothing. My online store gets a very large number of visits but no buyers.
I was checking something on my Art Wanted portfolio and took a double take when I caught sight of the stats there:
Now over 10,000 for 2019 is VERY respectable but despite the links given..no sales.
4,863 page views on my DeviantArt page this year. No sales.
Earlier in the year, on the Face Book Black Tower page, I looked at all the internet sites listing my books and that was world wide. Many millions. No sales though. The FB page itself gets between 104-144 views per day. No one asks questions or buys books.
...I WILL finish this no matter how many times the laptop shuts down!
Now this is all a good indicator as to the health of the industry. We know Marvel and DC, Image and Dark Horse are all seeing big drops in sales -though that may very well be down to how the companies are currently being run. In the future all of this Social Justice Warrior and WOKE crap will be seen as comics "Dark Ages" when the readers became less important (and the comics) compared to being "right on" and forcing 'diversity' on an industry that never needed it -if you think it did then you have no real idea about comics and their history.
For Independents that depend on every $, or in my case every £, it is bad. There seems to be a new clique of comic book 'fan' out there: the ones I mentioned elsewhere on CBO this week who shout support for Indie comics and tell everyone that they buy them ...but never do. It gives the false impression that there ARE fans out there regularly buying the comics.
I have been, and always will be, open about the publishing side. For many, many decades double and treble book keeping, lying and much more were the common norm in comics -in the UK as well as the USA. It is a pity that other small Independent publishers do not publish their true sales so that people can see how bad things are. Okay, in the UK a lot of small press publishers fib openly -some as I witnessed myself a few years back, panicking when they were told a member of HM Taxes and Revenue was in the building! Honestly, the number of people grabbing anyone to tell them "I'm selling nothing!" was amusing.
For my part I lowered the prices of books to the point that some (so long as not sold in the US which taxes me!) will only make me 50p to £1.00 to encourage sales. Not the slightest difference. In fact we have two choices for this new age of comics:
The Dark Ages
or
The Age of Indifference
If you can support Indie publishers do -but by buying not telling people you buy when you do not.
There goes the laptop. Stay safe!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)