Tools and Resources for Making Money Online

Here is a list of money making methods that are from a write up over on Mashables. It's heavily weighted towards peer production and blogging but should help you choose between the different resources and tools out there on the Internet today.

A word to the wise: for the sake of completeness, Mashables disclosed that they included a small number of sites that have been criticized for their ethics. I'll leave them unnamed here but I am sure you have read about a few of them. Cutcaster's advice and Mashable's advice is, "If it sounds too good to be true, it generally is."

Let us know what your experience has been like with some of these sites and any money-making stories you have.

2nd Disclamer-I personally know the owners of ROIrocket so I am a bit biased in saying that they have a quality team and product and are not included in the above disclaimer.

Site Design Complete

We have completed the Cutcaster design work and now doing some tweaking to the code and also the database. It's been a great process with the usual ups and downs but everyone is really happy with the way it turned out.

We are really excited to start this journey with all the people who have contacted us and all the people we have reached out. We are still in the 100's of potential users but the list and visitors to the site is growing at a great rate everyday. It's only the beginning and we can't wait to show you what we have in store and see how everything plays out.

So creators.....Start your engines or should I say start your Computers.

If you want to see what the designs for the site are looking like, just let me know. I'll post them up here.

Footage and Images that Cutcaster Wants

Take a good look below. Our buyers are interested in this footage. Here are the Footage and Images that we Want (in alphabetical order):

Animations: 3D background animations, 3D/2D motion graphics, background for text in DVD projects and menu systems, web graphics, promotional images and characters, etc.
Action Shots: People eating, working, playing, driving; things in motion or transit
Analogue: Intriguing textures, effects, & treatments
Commercials: Spec commercials, pre and post roll ads, 15-30 seconds in length. All subject matter is welcome
Concept Stock: Deep Hidden Meanings (DHM), images that represent emotions
Corporate Footage: Office shots, conference room shots, presentation shots, people in their work environment, etc.
Cultural Footage: Images of people, races and cultures engaging in activities or cultural traditions
Documentary/Short Films: All issues and topics
Geographic: Video and images of people and places around the world past, present and future; reels of specific locations, domestic and international
Healthcare: Administrative footage, imagery of healthcare providers and staff attending to administrative tasks in hospital/office settings, images of prescriptions such as pills, medicine, etc.
Historical/Archival: Images and video that capture a moment in history, archive footage
Holiday & Seasonal Themes: Christmas, Yom Kippur, Valentines Day, Easter, Ramadan, Halloween, winter, spring, summer, fall, etc.
Illustrations: Original design, graphics and motion graphics
Journalism: News worthy images or video content of relevant issues around the world; local, national and international
Photography: Portraits, still-life, abstract, aerial shots, architecture, motion photography, photo journalism, satellite photography, infrared, cityscapes, travel photography
Rare Artifacts: Footage in King Tuts tomb, an archiaelogical digs, findings, etc. The more rare, the more downloads.
Religious/Spiritual: Footage of rituals, festivals, representative imagery, sermons, etc. Specialty/Niche Footage: For example, firefighting, extreme fighting, extreme weather reels, hard to find captivating footage
Sports: Squash, mountain biking, ping pong, beer pong, soccer, skateboarding, karate, billiards, Championship ceremonies and shots (ie the winning shot), etc. Remember you need your releases.

We are building a high definition library and seeking HD or HDV footage for almost any subject. Check out Cutcaster here.

Tools for Photographers, Videobloggers and Musicians

If you haven't seen this comprehensive list of tools for the above mentioned people over on Mashables you should check it out. With the explosion taking place in online media, a list that covers the sites catering to people interested in online media is so valuable.

The entries were compiled from previous Mashable articles - see the links at the bottom of their article for further reading.

Next time, with everyones help, Mashable will include, Cutcaster.

One of them that I think they missed is MOO, which I believe will be a big hit with the photo and image community in the near future. Cutcaster would like to reach out to innovative and upstart companies like this in the future.

Can user generated content be used in ad campaigns?

It wasn't long ago that no one had heard of User Generated Content (UGC). It hasn't taken long though for advertisers to realize they resonate with their target audience and are a great staging ground for a focus group study. Just in the past year or so UG commercials have sprinted onto the scene and created a stir throughout the advertising world. Advertisers from Dorritos to Dove to Malibu Caribbean Rum have held contests to find user-created videos to use as commercials. These types of commercials, and the buzz surrounding them from different media outlets that cover them and the people that talk about them, shows that the advertising world is embracing the advantages of viral marketing.

How does an advertising agency decide whether going in front of their brand with a clip from YouTube is a good idea and won't get them fired on the spot? How much convincing does it take a brand to trust the advertiser that it isn't as big a leap of faith as they think it is to use the content in a campaign? We saw what happened with Virgin Media and using CC Flickr photos. They did it the wrong way and are now paying for it in legal headaches and a botched campaign.

The pros and cons of a UGC campaign have been discussed at length all over the Internet and across boardrooms. It's our opinion that, using UGC in an advertising campaign can be very cost effective. In most cases, the creators are paid as if they are an actor and give up a lot of the rights to the video. That saves a brand a lot of money.

Why wouldn't the creators license the videos to the brand or advertiser to use? It seems like they are short-changing themselves the value of the clip. If you had a hit on YouTube and a major brand came to you and said they wanted to use it, what would you do?

How much is a Photo of you worth?

For me with the model release include, nothing.

On the other hand, photos of celebrities getting hitched, at Starbucks or crashing their car full of drugs while driving drunk are the hottiest commodity since sliced bread it seems. They are getting snapped up more than ice in the desert. All kidding aside, those photos can be bought for multi-million dollar payouts and the amounts are growing for shots that show our celeb idols in more everyday settings.

What is the most expensive celeb photo ever sold? Topping out the list of high priced photos were Brad and Angelina, whose photo of their baby Shiloh was sold to People magazine for $4.1mm. Doing the right thing, the couple turned around and gave the money to various African charities. Bravo Brangelina.

The trend points to a Celeb photo and footage market that is red hot and still heating up. The public's appetite for this type of content is insatiable and the competition between different publications is creating bidding wars that increase the price of this content to nose bleed levels. In addition, the trend has moved away from staged moments and more towards catching them in the act. I know. It's more fun to see Brittney Spears freak out on a bystander's car then it is to see her on stage or the red carpet. Stars have recently begun to control and profit from how their pictures are taken and used. Celebs have hired or tipped off the "paps" to be in the right place at the right time. There were also rumors that Spears was changing outfits during the day so she could have photos of her in different outfits which she could sell to the agencies. I don't know if that is crazy or really smart. Smart for Spears. Crazy for us that we care that much ;-)

I think this practice is something that will grow and open up a new category of celebrity footage and photos which can be licensed by the celebs to others. How will professional paps react to this? If they are on the outside of these deals, it could negatively effect their trade or make them more ruthless getting the shots. What is your take on how the celeb photo and footage market will evolve and where are the opportunities?

More on the iPhone...

We tend to agree with GigaOm that even though the iPhone roll-out didn't meet Wall Street's lofty expectations, it shouldn't have impacted the stock as much as it did today (down -6.3%). Numbers aside, whether or not this really impacts Apple's bottom line in the way it's expected to, there hasn't been this much buzz about a product, well...since the iPod. This device will be revolutionary and will hopefully push online video distribution to the next level (which should benefit all creators and distributors of content).

Who is planning on creating content purely for mobile devices in the future?

Sign Up at Cutcaster.com

Cutcaster is getting ready for it's launch and we are reaching out to those content creators and buyers to sign up at the site for the alpha launch. You must sign up at the site to receive an invite and we are sorry but the alpha is closed unless you have an invite.

So sign up here.

If you have any questions you can email us or you can check out the FAQ page.

Does Creative Commons Protect you as a buyer of Content?

Apparently not. About the image reported today that Virgin Mobile Australia got burned when their Ad Agency, Host, used a not-model-released image in its nationwide print campaign. Host failed to realize that the license covers the photographer’s copyright, but not necessarily the people in the pictures. A very important detail that shouldn't be overlooked.

It's believed Host used the image becuase they thought they were protected under a Creative Commons license. Not so fast said the people depicted in the images.


Click here for more details from Agency Spy.

Scott Kirsner- The Future of Web Video

This is a fabulous e-book and one that I studied over and over. If you haven't already picked up your copy of Scott Kirsner's book on the evolving landscape of online video production, syndication and monetization, he recently updated his first version with a new edition and you should really check it out if your future involves online video in any form. To pick up a copy of the 2nd edition of this must read online video bible go to Lulu Stores or Cinematech.

If anyone has read the book, I'd love to have a chat about how you liked it and if it was helpful.

Video Format Wars!

Which formats are dying and which formats are the future? Did you love Laserdisc? Were you bonkers over Betamax? Do you cry yourself to sleep because BeOS never hit the big time? Never fear, SurfLizard, CNET and Cutcaster are here.

SurfLizard put out an interesting article CNET put out a funny article on the Format Wars and which ones are here to stay and which ones are dead.

http://digitalliving.cnet.co.uk/specials/0,39030785,49291589-2,00.htm

Cutcaster- The Creative Blog Directory: Worldwide blog links

The Creative Blog Directory: Worldwide blog links

Here is a link to a bunch of really cool animation and creative blogs. Worth a look if you have a few minutes to kill.

And I thought the NYC subway system was confusing

Warning!!! Do not attempt to read if you are hungover. Just kidding but Information Architects have released their Web Trend Map for 2007, a subway map of the 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. This in theory demonstrates the relationship between various sites and ideas, with a strong focus on Web 2.0. I'm still looking for Cutcaster's stop.

I just got finished learning the NYC subway system and that took me 5 years. Not sure how long this will take ;-)

Trendsspotting has a good write up on how the map could be changed.

F8- Mark Zuckerberg Speaks about Facebook and future with 800 developers.

If you have a little bit of time, this is a pretty incredible video of F8. Mark, in front of a crowd of 800 developers in San Francisco, clearly outlines the growth, future and new platform for developers to work and make money on Facebook. He's a bit nervous at first but who wouldn't be at 23. Very cool new developments and nice work.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

We had a busy weekend of work and tying up loose ends. Wanted to give everyone a heads-up that we are almost finished with phase 1 and are ready for our alpha launch. If you are interested in being a part of the launch of Cutcaster, sign up on the homepage.

Have a great start to the week and be in touch.

Thank you Sir. May I have another?

These copyright infringement suits that are nipping at Youtube's feet keep popping up and this time Apple may get dragged into the fight. As many of you may know, Apple's iPhone will carry YouTube videos, which funny enough were selected by YouTube and made available for iPhone users to view on their devices.

How well thought out was the selection of videos that were made available to the iPhone? Turns out that a small number of the 10,000 videos made available were illegally uploaded by someone other than the copyright holder and now threatens to put Apple in the same legal hot water as YouTube. Examples include a clip of Thierry Henry, a French football player, clips from Adult Swim, the comedy channel operated by Turner Broadcasting and clips of OJ Simpson's getaway Bronco chase.

While Apple probably never thought it would be trafficking in bootlegged content with the likes of YouTube, it now has to worry that the content being displayed on it's devices don't infringe on other's copyright.

So who is liable? What has the Internet done to issues in copyright? And more importantly who is going to have to pay out the money to settle this infringements?

I'm highly skeptical that Apple will be found liable but its an embarrassing mess that they are going to have to deal with in the future.

More on Veoh...

Amazingly enough, Veoh has managed to get pretty mainstream and they don't even have a publicly available product! If you don't believe me, just read this article in that trend-setting tech journal called the New York Times. With big-name investors like Time Warner, we're not surprised by the placement of this article, but we still do think that VeohTV does in fact have the potential to revolutionze online video consumption (especially now that the iPhone is a runaway hit). We'll definitely keep you updated.

Trip to Germany

I'm planning a trip overseas to Germany at the end of September and early October to go to Munich and then to go to Berlin. If future Cutcasters are around, I'd love to meet up at the Wiesn or in Berlin.

Can't wait to get back to Berlin after spending almost 8 months there while I was in University and get back to Oktoberfest which is one of the most fun weekends I don't have clear memories of. haha.

If you are going to be around we should all get a group together and meet up.

Bis dann und Prost.

Copyright Pirates on the Internet High Seas!

Is Google promoting piracy? What do they need to do, if anything, to combat it? What is Youtube really doing to combat it? Is piracy all of a sudden going mainstream? This is a major issue for Cutcaster and our members or future members. In this blog, we reported on this before when Youtube announced it was going to use AudibleMagic to begin detecting copyrighted content on their site and track the content to pay royalties to the actual owners of it. Personally i thought the response was a very late one and pretty weak to the $1 billion dollar lawsuit it was slapped with by Viacom. Not the kind of lawsuit you want to wake up to but in the end it looked like Viacom's bark was bigger than the bite.

But a report was put out today by The National Legal and Policy Center that suggested that Google was voluntarily neglecting to take down pirated content because they wanted the traffic and profit more than doing the right thing. The stated goal of the NLPC is "to do our best to expose the pirating of copyrighted material by finding and posting as many apparently pirated works as possible. For starters, we are focusing on Google Video because it hosts many full-length movies and concerts and because it has received less attention than YouTube, also owned by Google." The NLPC is definitely not afraid to go after the big dogs.

In Google's defense, one shouldn't be able to bring a lawsuit or sue someone for indexing content. It's impractical for Google to manage what is legal or not and frankly that is not what Googles role should be. Companies need to pursue the pirates themselves, if anyone. But Google needs to do more and take the lead in this issue or it will come back to bite them. They have working relationships with most of the media companies and they should partner with them to at least give the appearance that they care about the issue and want to help, even if they prefer to be relaxed about the issue for profit motives.

Cutcaster will work with sellers to track down any illegal uses of content creators work. It's a major fear of people who put content online that it won't be protected and others will use it in ways that is either unknown to the copyright holder or illegally. As the article points out, copyright infringement around the globe hurts everyone and new provisions and rules need to be put into place. It cost the movie industry an estimated $2.3 billion in revenues according to this study by Carl Horowitz of the NLPC.
God only knows what it did to other smaller individuals or companies outside the movie industry who have content online and have been trying to protect their work from Internet pirates.

So what are the best ways to protect someones content while it is on the Internet? Are normal people like us, outside of the big movie studios, very concerned about their content being pirated? I, for sure, know a few who are.

Click here to view the NLPC report and the 50 most pirated films on Google.

DailyMotion...

So the popular French video site is launching a US-based site with a pretty fancy team of MTV veterans and will even seek to pay content-producers. DailyMotion has Google in its sites and is seeking to dominate the second-place spot behind YouTube. I personally think they're great...and the newly assembled team is going to pose a unique challenge to YouTube and everyone else in the industry. Their model of paying for content hasn't really been proven, but they are definitely going to be a company to reckon with competitively.

Where do you see your business moving towards?

Cutcaster is interested in learning where you see your business changing and what you think will be the focus of your business in the coming years. Where do you see the most room for growth in your business and where will the majority of your time spent?

Image Production Arms Race!

What's your take on Micro-Stock and its affect on the overall Stock Business? There has been much debate on what the micro-stock companies have done to the entire stock production industry. What's your take on how it has affected it and has it been good, bad or unavoidable?

About the Image has a few articles on the subject that will serve to show both sides of the argument and the numbers behind the story. Click here for a closer look at micro-stock numbers and here for an editorial look at the issue.

How has this affected your business and what will you do in the future to counter it?

Pluggd...

Just saw this article on VentureBeat that gave a quick update on this company we've been tracking for a few months now. It's called Pluggd and aside from having some solid backers and venture financing, they're amazingly enough trying to sell a decent product. They provide heatmaps of audio files (and soon video) that show you where certain words or themes pop up. How they're going to do this with video is beyond me, but it will make online video searches that much more relevant and timesaving. When it's ready, we'd obviously love to use technology like this on our site, so we're interested in seeing what they negotiate with partners in terms of pricing and who they partner up with over the summer.