Megan O'Neill

Earlier this year, British YouTuber Benjamin Cook’s “Becoming YouTube: Girls On YouTube” sparked some controversy–mainly because it ignored the fact that there are hugely successful female YouTubers, such as Grace Helbig, iJustine, Hannah Hart and Jenna Marbles, the second most-subscribed-to creator on YouTube with over 8 million subscribers and 1.1 billion video views. It also left out the voices of some of YouTube’s more seasoned and successful female stars, many of whom actually feel empowered by their YouTube fans and tout the advantages of being women on the video site. We’ll hear from a couple of these more optimistic female YouTubers shortly, but first – here’s a look at some of the biggest issues brought to light in Cook’s ‘Girls On YouTube’ video.

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These days, more and more brands are incorporating YouTube into their online advertising and marketing strategies. But if you’re new to advertising on YouTube, it can be tough figuring out how it works and where to get started. We spoke with Michael Lanz, Industry Director, Social & Information at Google, and Jane Barrett, Director of Marketing and Communications at Zoosk, to glean some insight into the benefits of brand advertising on YouTube, as well as some tips on how to get started.

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More and more brands are beginning to think about live streaming and how they can incorporate it into their online video strategy. We spoke with Bern Rexer of MXPI, a thirteen-year veteran of live television and live streaming production, to find out more about how live streaming works on YouTube, as well as some of the benefits and challenges of the medium.

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“With over half a billion users, it’s no surprise that Twitter has its fair share of awful tweeters.” So purports Sivan Cohen of Conduit in a hilarious infographic that takes a look at some of the most obnoxious tweeters in the tech industry.

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Friday is here, and with it comes our weekly roundup of smile-inducing videos. This week’s Friday Morning Laughs features a ridiculous Star Trek parody created by the IRS, an “honest trailer” for Les Miserables, dogs with hands, an adorable meerkat and more. Enjoy!

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The DoGooder Video Awards is an annual competition that celebrates the best of the best in the nonprofit video sector. Creators and non-profit organizations that are working to make positive change through online video are awarded with $3,500 grants, free admission to the Nonprofit Technology Conference and special promotion on YouTube. Today, the finalists in the 2013 DoGooder Video Awards have been announced and you’re invited to vote for the winners.

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Stevie, the online video platform that turns your Facebook and Twitter feeds into a personalized TV show, now lets you turn personal Facebook profiles or business pages into their own social TV channels. The new feature turns any profile or page into a lean back experience, featuring videos, images, status updates, comments and more.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt is more than an actor, director, producer and writer—he also has his own collaborative production company, HitRECord, which enables writer, musicians, photographers, video editors and other creatives to collaborate on all sorts of projects from video and audio to images and text. This week, Levitt announced that HitRECord is partnering with Pivot, a new cable TV network to bring their collaborative platform to television with a collaborative variety show called ‘Hit RECord on TV’.

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These days more and more brands are hopping on the video marketing bandwagon, and a new infographic from BuboBox reveals five reasons why these brands are doing the right thing. With video marketing, BuboBox purports, “people get more engaged, spend more time on your site consuming product information and eventually conversion rate will increase.”

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In order to simplify things for creators that are making money off their videos, YouTube has announced that as of April 1, 2013, “AdSense will no longer calculate and report AdSense for Content Host earnings for YouTube partners.” Rather than going to AdSense for earnings reports, YouTube creators with monetized videos will view their earnings, which will be calculated by YouTube, in YouTube Analytics.

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