http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/1Z9rrYFwoSQ/story01.htm

http://boingboing.net/?p=222032

Hank was one of the recipients of the YouTube $300M "Original Channel" fund, and recounts some of his lessons learned:

* Spending more money to produce the same number of minutes of content does not increase viewership. Online video isn’t about how good it looks, it’s about how good it is.

* People who make online video are much better at making online video than people who make TV shows. This probably seems obvious to you (it certainly is to me) but it apparently was not obvious to the people originally distributing this money.

* When advertising agencies tell you they want something (higher quality content, long-form content, specific demographics, lean-back content, stuff that looks like tv) it’s not our job to attempt to deliver those things. In a world where the user really does get to choose, the content created to satisfy the needs and wants of viewers (not advertisers) will always reign supreme (thankfully.)

There's lots more there, but the tl;dr up there really nails it, and seems broadly applicable to other types of online creative endeavors.

Lessons Learned from YouTube’s $300M Hole (via Wil Wheaton)