An interesting network offer...

[markkaz]

I did my year with Fullscreen and I learned that it was a waste of time for me. Thankfully, I negotiated a very high quota and percentage so the harm was minimal.

At Vidcon, a network approached me with a plan that actually makes sense. They would take my videos and translate them to Russian. I would start a new channel to keep those videos separate. This way, that network would earn their keep based on the videos that they actually made. It is more of a licensing deal in a way.

But, after thinking about it for awhile, I could pay somebody to do transcripts and then Google could make Russian subtitles available. Actually, if I did transcripts, that would serve the whole world for translations.

That being said, Russia isn't even in my top ten regions. Malaysia is #10 with 187,000 views for last 30 days so Russia would be less than that. If I were to do voice-overs, the money would be better served by appealing to Brazil since they are my #3 region with over 500K views.

Anyway, this is why networks don't seem to be a good fit for me. Whatever they can do, I can do on my own. Actually, this goes the same for any channel no matter the size.

 

[Michael]

Thats an interesting offer, if you can do it yourself and it wont take much of your time or the return could be good I'd say do it on your own. Do you speak Russian fluently? If so I would go for it and test the waters, keep it as your content so you keep all revenue, rights etc

 

[Shane]

Seems odd that they want to help you appeal to an audience that you don't particularly appeal to on a large level already.

Maybe you should tell them if they want to help they can use fan translations to caption your videos in Russian

 

[Michael]

Seems odd that they want to help you appeal to an audience that you don't particularly appeal to on a large level already.

Maybe you should tell them if they want to help they can use fan translations to caption your videos in Russian

Its likely theres an untapped market there and Marks channel could fill that gap quite easily with his videos in another language. If you could translate all of his videos into all the most common languages like French, Spanish, German etc he could attract audiences from those countries too especially those who cant understand nor speak English. You will notice quite a few channels provide translated descriptions and terms in them these days for SEO purposes and having a whole video in the viewers language will help tremendously with watch time/revenue.

 

[markkaz]

Do you speak Russian fluently?

My last name is Russian because my real Father died and my Mom re-married a Russian. He's my Dad because I was only 3 years old at the time. I have no memories of my blood father.

While my Dads' side of the family is 100% Russian, I don't know the language, just the food =)[DOUBLEPOST=1403990643,1403990541][/DOUBLEPOST]

Seems odd that they want to help you appeal to an audience that you don't particularly appeal to on a large level already.

Maybe you should tell them if they want to help they can use fan translations to caption your videos in Russian

You make a good point that the new YouTube Fan Translations might take care of my situation already.[DOUBLEPOST=1403990806][/DOUBLEPOST]

Its likely theres an untapped market there and Marks channel could fill that gap quite easily with his videos in another language. If you could translate all of his videos into all the most common languages like French, Spanish, German etc

Exactly. I know that kids like my track videos from all over the globe but I do have to consider how much more traffic I could gain by providing somebody emulating my 'character' in their native language.

 

[Michael]

My last name is Russian because my real Father died and my Mom re-married a Russian. He's my Dad because I was only 3 years old at the time. I have no memories of my blood father.

While my Dads' side of the family is 100% Russian, I don't know the language, just the food =)[DOUBLEPOST=1403990643,1403990541][/DOUBLEPOST]

You make a good point that the new YouTube Fan Translations might take care of my situation already.[DOUBLEPOST=1403990806][/DOUBLEPOST]

Exactly. I know that kids like my track videos from all over the globe but I do have to consider how much more traffic I could gain by providing somebody emulating my 'character' in their native language.

Even just taking your videos and dubbing over them could work lol its better than nothing in their native language

 

[Crown]

Interesting offer.

I'm guessing your target audience is children? If so, I would strongly advise against doing transcripts and subtitles / closed captions - They won't read them / won't like them. Children find it too hard / annoying to read text on the screen while trying to watch the action on the screen and the foreign language that they can hear but not understand will annoy them. Just a heads up

 

[Tarmack]

I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of the "business" world exists not for lack of ability to do it oneself, but rather the time investment required to do it. Online translators are still not good enough. The same is true of brand integration. You don't NEED a network to do it for you, but it is a time intensive activity which takes away from the ability to make videos.

 

[markkaz]

I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of the "business" world exists not for lack of ability to do it oneself, but rather the time investment required to do it. Online translators are still not good enough. The same is true of brand integration. You don't NEED a network to do it for you, but it is a time intensive activity which takes away from the ability to make videos.

That's a good statement. I could do the translations myself but I don't want to spend the time doing it. Maybe it won't take as long as I think. I seen a demo and seemed very well organized and easy to use. I will give it a try and report back.

I do understand what @Crown stated in regards to younger viewers not wanting read subtitles or that they can be annoying. I'm not sure I want somebody else to be the 'voice' of my brand.

 

[Tarmack]

That's a good statement. I could do the translations myself but I don't want to spend the time doing it. Maybe it won't take as long as I think. I seen a demo and seemed very well organized and easy to use. I will give it a try and report back.

I do understand what @Crown stated in regards to younger viewers not wanting read subtitles or that they can be annoying. I'm not sure I want somebody else to be the 'voice' of my brand.

My suggestion (I write agreements/contracts/MOUs for a living) would be to do a trial run. Draft up an agreement for a single video, pending approval of the content. If you like how it turns out, then you can expand that agreement to a longer term arrangement. Ideally given how YouTube works, people working with your videos are often best served by just downloading the content from your channel themselves which does take almost all of the work out of your hands.

Now, you might need to find someone you do know that speaks Russian who can let you know if it's crap. LOL