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[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Our Natalie raking in $100,000 a year from YouTube 

by Asher Moses  August 20, 2010 http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life


Australia's queen of YouTube, Natalie Tran, is one of just 10 independent 
YouTube stars around the world who made more than $US100,000 from the 
site in the past year.

Tran, who creates her videos at her parents' home in western Sydney, has 
eschewed titillation in favour of clever skits about her life.

Her three most popular clips, with millions of views each, are "How to 
fake a six pack", "The ultrasound" and "Bending at the knees for love".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijgfBwq_vkM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXu1lEa-NuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0EgDFXsyQs

Tran's page, communitychannel, has long been the most subscribed 
Australian YouTube channel of all time, with 740,682 subscribers and more 
than 270 million views on her videos to date. 

Worldwide, she is 23rd most subscribed of all time.

A new study by YouTube analytics and advertising firm TubeMogul, first 
reported by BusinessInsider, used users' viewership data to estimate 
their annual income under YouTube's partner program, which allows the 
most popular users to take half of the advertising revenue derived from 
their clips.

The study applied to anyone who was not part of a major media brand and 
covered the period from July 2009 to July this year.

Tran, with almost 139 million views in that year, was found to have 
earned an income of $US101,000.

This is a conservative estimate and covers just the Google ads alongside 
each clip - the figure could be higher if one includes money earned from 
paid endorsements and product placement.

The comedic value is in Tran's satirical re-enactments of the situations 
she is talking about and the fact that she plays all of the characters.

Tran did not respond to a request for comment today but in an interview 
with this website last year she said: "I think that to have longevity on 
these kind of websites you need to offer something different ... there's 
plenty of [sexual] material on the internet that would provide that kind 
of entertainment already."

She said the skits were all based on things that happened in her 
day, "just a little bit exaggerated for comedy purposes".

"They're not hugely deep and meaningful videos; they're just short 
snippets that are meant to be a little bit of fun in somebody's lunch 
break ... the world wouldn't be a worse place without them," she said.

The immense popularity of YouTube has created celebrities out of ordinary 
people around the world. It offers seemingly limitless exposure for 
people to market their personal brands.

Many have turned their virtual celebrity into real-world dollars, such as 
Where the hell is Matt? star Matt Harding, who was hired by Visa for a 
global marketing campaign.

Fred Figglehorn, who is fifth on TubeMogul's list, recently struck gold 
after cable TV network Nickelodeon signed him up to create Fred: The 
Movie.

This week, YouTube announced it would feature its top videos in a new 
section called YouTube Charts.

Top 10 YouTube earners in the past year:
http://www.youtube.com/charts/videos_views

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Cheers,
Stephen