First, some observations
- Last Dec I uploaded a video to the org. A couple weeks later, I uploaded the exact same video to amvnews.ru. Neither was under a contest, special promotion, or anything that would draw any more attention to it than any other other typical video. On the org I did an announcement thread, link in my sig, and other normal acceptable pimping. On amvnews.ru I did nothing other than upload the vid. Currently the org entry has 1025 hits and 233 downloads (including previews)? The amvnews.ru entry has 6475 hits and 1162 downloads (no idea if that includes previews or not)?
- I just had a video which premiered in the AKROSS contest, it was put on their website earlier today. Having been up less than 24 hours, it has been viewed almost 1000 times already. Now granted, AKROSS is a big deal sort of contest and that alone drives a lot of views, but even so, AKROSS is currently only 60 or 70 hits away from matching the attention the above org copy has gotten in ten months. Except it happened on AKROSS in one day.
- One of my vids was a finalist in several AWA Pro categories, a similarly large contest, and in the five months it's been on the org it has yet to come close to a thousand views.
- I have had videos make it at least to the semi-finals in VCAs before as well, and one of those which has been up for three years now still has less downloads than amvnews.ru, which was not a contest submission.
- I don't believe amvnews.ru or AKROSS have more visitors than the org does, probably quite the reverse.
- I have won at cons before, more than once, and while those vids are among my more downloaded on the org they still don't come close to matching the views I've gotten on russian sites.
- Keep in mind that around the org I'm a known person. Because of that, I have noted that my releases get more attention, views, and comments in the announcement forum than unknown editors at least. On both amvnews and AKROSS where I am virtually unknown, I doubt more than 1 in 10 there have heard of me, much less actually know me.
So this isn't simply that contests draw more attention, that con submissions get more attention, that I'm a member of the community, or that more visitors = more views. It's simply that the two Russian sites have given my videos *FAR* more attention than the org ever has, despite most of these factors leaning towards giving the org an edge.
Now this post isn't about my videos (which is why I didn't name or link them), but rather what the community can do for editors. There's been talk before about what the org can do to accept noobs, how it's focus is on cataloging, how some feel it's too focused on editors rather than viewers, etc. However, it's pretty clear to me that if a noob asked how to get their videos seen, an honest answer would be to ignore the org entirely and become active in the Russian community. So I'm left wondering, what can the org do to promote videos to similar levels that the Russians do? Can it be done? Should it be done?













