Questioning the value of having your students create videos and put them on YouTube? Well, there could be monetary gains down the road if their videos are clever.
Consider the ten college buddies that used to sing together. The group was known as Straight No Chaser and one of the members posted an old video of them singing together on YouTube. The video was an amusing version of the 12 Days of Christmas from a 1998 concert. Although the original video is no longer available on YouTube, the 2008 version of the song is shown below:
The original intent was just to have the members of the group wax nostalgic over their former glory days in college. But the video became a viral hit and racked up millions of views. One of the viewers was an employee of Atlantic Records. He contacted the group and offered them a recording contract. The original group is now touring (they haven’t quit their day jobs) and just released a Christmas CD. This is a great example to share with students to show how accidental commercial success can occur on the Internet.
As part of a computer literacy course, I like to have students make videos (or video podcasts) and I have them share the videos on YouTube. If your students manage to produce something particularly clever and entertaining, they might be the next viral video hit. So encourage them to give it a try.
No comments:
Post a Comment