Spoongraphics on Youtube vs. Blogging

[Espermaschine]

A few das ago some new guy asked me about learning ressources for Gimp, and without putting much further thought into it, i said youtube.
I mean, i do search the web for all kinds of contents, but most of the time i find interesting tutorials on YT.

Now Spoongraphics posted a retrospective of 2017 on his website and reported that all his Youtube tutorials get more views compared to his written tutorial content.

167,699 : 8,779 views, to be precise. Quite a difference !

Which also explains how Nik Suporito can have over 73.000 subscribers for pretty basic Gimp and Inkscape tutorials.

Even more annoying: written tutorials take so much more time to produce, compared to a 20min video you record in one or three takes.

[rich2005]

I did read a week or so ago about how much cash some of these youtube channels generate. Not trivial amounts. Looking at the one you referenced and all the advertising, that going to be the same. For the top 10 listed all seem to for Ad*be, video or text, same problem for me, bloody awful black interface with full desktop, makes them almost unreadable. Pleased they are 'free' (except you will pay eventually in other ways) I would not like to have to buy one or subscribe $xx per month.

[Espermaschine]

Im unsure about this. There are a lot of famous youtubers who got demonetized and struggle to continue.
Tim Pool for example (a freelance journalist).

A lot of them are trying to keep going with Patreon.

On the other hand, a big channel called World of Wonder had lots of free comedy content and now they are trying to go with a subscription model of 4$ per month and the audience is not having it and rioting the comment section.

I cant see myself paying for any of that.

But im just puzzled that some corners of the internet feel like a desert and some are mad busy.
Ofnuts wrote some of the best plug-ins for Gimp. He should have 70.000 followers, not some guy who rips of other people's tutorials to make a living.

[Ofnuts]

(01-01-2018, 08:13 AM)Espermaschine Wrote: Even more annoying: written tutorials take so much more time to produce, compared to a 20min video you record in one or three takes.

I assume there are a few rehearsals and even some research (best demo image, etc....) before the takes.

What I don't understand is that these people use lengthy videos while their audience has a very short attention span. I once discussed with a guy wo advertized his video tuts on reddit's r/gimp and he confessed that most people didn't spend more than 30 seconds on them. After a month, the cumulated view time of his video was still shorter than the video itself.

And also why said audience looks at videos. It is extremely difficult to diagonal-view a video, while it's easy to skip the uninteresting parts of a written tut.

On the bright side, we also have topics in the Tutorials section that have over 2K view (on GimpForums, some were over 20K). So possibly the forums are part of the competition of written tutorials, which explain the lower numbers...

[Espermaschine]

(01-01-2018, 07:17 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: What I don't understand is that these people use lengthy videos while their audience has a very short attention span. I once discussed with a guy wo advertized his video tuts on reddit's r/gimp and he confessed that most people didn't spend more than 30 seconds on them. After a month, the cumulated view time of his video was still shorter than the video itself.

And also why said audience looks at videos. It is extremely difficult to diagonal-view a video, while it's easy to skip the uninteresting parts of a written tut.

I guess there is some psychology going on. People just like to look at something a "master" designer has made, offering the potential they could learn it too.

If you have a look at Nik's personal website, it presses all the expected design buttons you might have.
But its also completely interchangeable. There could be 30 more websites with the same content and you wouldnt know the difference.
Its all the same hipster logos, Spotify type duotone designs and sleak logos.

I guess written tutorials require more concentration to look at and digest. Clicking a video is like watching TV casually.

[Pat625]

I Have been a frequent user of both.  If the video is short, context not complex, and the instructor does not proceed through steps so rapidly thatI can actually see what is being done and which tools are used. Also, it is helpful if there is no jumpy, annoying, irritating music that drowns out the instructor.

Rich2005's videos are excellent examples of great video instruction.  

Conbagui and PhotoMaster are excellent examples of great Text tutorials. Instructions include screenshots that show tools used, settings, image changes and layer stack order if complex.

There are many more but these came to mind instantly.

These are views of a user, not the Tutorial Creator.  I know it takes a significant amount of time to make a nice user friendly tutorial and know nothing of the monetary rewards.  I may be erroneously thinking, but the ones viewed the most should be the easiest to use and learn.

I know this is just my opinion, but I seriously appreciate all the efforts of the tutorial creators that have been very helpful to me, both video and text.

[Espermaschine]

Theres a lot more going on.

People like Spoongraphics and Nik are doing this to earn a living.
The tutorials on tutsplus.com, for example, solely exist to sell assets they have in their store.

Gimp doesnt sell anything. I guess its because of the open source ethos, but also because unlike PS, Gimp doesnt have in-build functions that could be sold.
PS has actions and styles, that let you create an (editable) effect with a mouseclick.
Just imagine every plug-in or script you installed had to be payed for....

Some people are interested in offering help to spread Gimp as a free alternative to PS, Corel, etc.
Some people write tutorials for the feedback they get from their community.
Some people want to push the boundaries of what can be done with Gimp.

But for a lot of people Gimp is just a hobby and not a profession.
It also seems to me that for a lot of people, Gimp is a community in itself.
Just look at GC, that site is basically a virtual village or even family.

[Ofnuts]

(01-03-2018, 11:49 PM)Espermaschine Wrote: Just look at GC, that site is basically a virtual village or even family.

And G-F.n is more like a repair shop