youtube

GScott wants to know if he skips an ad on YouTube, will Leo lose money? Leo says there is money to be made on youtube, but TWiT doesn't make a lot. It's a few thousand a month and it really doesn't matter if he skips the ad, they've been charged for it. And skipping an ad gives youtube and advertisers valuable feedback on what ads work and what doesn't. Leo puts the show on youtube for convenience. Besides, TWiT sells its own ads in the podcast anyway, the So feel free to skip YouTube's ads!

Joe wants to do a video conference get together and then save it online. Leo says that Zoom is a good option for that, in spite of their security issues. But he will have to pay for the storage to the cloud. From there, he could download it and send it to youtube. 

Jon complains that U2 will start playing when he puts down his phone and gets into the car. It's very annoying. Leo suspects that it's the free U2 album that Apple gave to everyone a few years ago. It's called Songs of Innocence and it's probably in iCloud. Apple created a special tool to delete it, he can get it here. But the larger issue is that when he gets rid of it, his Bluetooth audio in his car will just play something else.

Alex wants to start a YouTube channel. Leo says that if he has a smartphone he can hit the ground running. As for video editing, Leo recommends Adobe Premiere Elements. It's under $100. But your phone may also be able to edit the video you shoot. Don't go overboard with gear: start small, and then upgrade your gear as you need to. Lights are important though.

Barry bought a QNap NAS recently and he's a bit frustrated that there isn't a lot of documentation with it for the hardware or software.  Leo says that's a common problem as they assume you're an expert if you're looking to use a NAS for a backup. Leo says that YouTube is a great place to learn how to run QNap. There's a QNapTV Channel there.

Ivan's granddaughter would like to capture the screen of an iPad and add visual commentary. Leo says she wants to be a youtube star! Leo says the iPad can't do both. It does have a built-in screen recorder. Then you can record her with a camera and then edit the two together on a computer with a picture in picture option. Another option is an open source program called OBS Studio that can do it in real time on a computer. It's mostly used in making screencasts.  

Al says he's been watching Smarter Every Day on YouTube and he has learned about click farms that are designed to create bogus views and clicks on YouTube to not only earn ad revenue but to skew the recommendation engine to drive videos that wouldn't normally be recommended. Leo says that YouTube really needs to address this by 1) getting rid of comments, and 2) getting rid of the recommendation engine.