YouTube may be a great place to post and find videos, but when it comes to getting the attention of a positive community, some folks have had better luck than others. And Nerdist Industries certainly knows this well.
The popular news-oriented website, which has nearly one million subscribers on YouTube, has also been the place for a number of negative comments on certain videos. The site’s co-founder, stand-up comedian and TV personality Chris Hardwick, addressed this Saturday night during his annual panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
Hardwick stated that he will no longer post exclusive videos on YouTube first, instead referring interested parties to check them out over on Nerdist.com. The reason for this, according to him, is that people often come to YouTube for a single viewing of a particular clip, then move on to other things. It’s not a place for them to “hang out,” according to him.
He’s also not fond of the commenters, as he refers to them as “toxic,” a term that actually got a huge reaction from the crowd. “YouTube is a bunch of 13-year-olds who are like, ‘Look at me, I am unattended!'” he stated. “The second comment is always ‘FIRST’, because they never make it.”
The Nerdist site, however, has become quite positive with community, featuring a number of audio podcasts, daily news posts, and other broadcasts that are highly popular. It’s also spreading out to TV, with one of the company’s offerings, All-Star Celebrity Bowling, being worked on by AMC.
While Nerdist will be premiering most videos on its site first, the company hastened to correct the impression Hardwicvk may have left that YouTube was less important than before. A Nerdist spokesman provided the following statement in an update:
Chris Hardwick is both Nerdist’s CEO and a standup comedian. His comments about our stance on YouTube were intended to be comedy rather than a reflection of our business strategy with respect to YouTube.
YouTube continues to be a tremendous partner for Nerdist, and while we will premiere much of our upcoming content on Nerdist.com, YouTube will remain a home for us well into the future. We are part of the YouTube community and we have no intention to turn away from our fellow creators, subscribers, and the 1-billion users that come to visit each month. Some upcoming content will even live exclusively on YouTube, as the personal touch that comes from being a vibrant, video-facing social media platform allows us to connect with fans in ways that simply aren’t available anywhere else. YouTube.com/Nerdist is here to stay, regardless of who shows up first and how many capital letters they use to tell us about it.
What do you think? Is posting its own videos a better strategy for Nerdist than trying to turn to YouTube?
Source: Recode.net
