Gary Vaynerchuk Archive

Yesterday we took a look at why your own domain name is a stronger branding option than a Facebook vanity url. There will be some rules about the naming of vanity urls when they go “on sale” on Friday.

As I was browsing around, it appears many names are already taken. I present the following list so that you can plan accordingly. The following 25 names are already taken — how they were given is not 100% known. It does appear that our friends at the cupcake factory may have had something to do with it. BFF status also seems to be another way in. Note that this list does not include brand names.

Update: Amit has put together a neat vanity url checker.

• britney – this one belongs to Britney Spears although it redirects to britney-spears – she’s so great she gets multiple vanity urls
• loic
• gary
• mike
• chrismessina
• david
• obama – redirects to barackobama
• mark
• tom
• juliaallison
• william
• james
• paul
• ellen – redirects to the ellen television show
• randi
• pete
• oprah
• jasoncalacanis
• joebiden
• sarahpalin
• leolaporte
• rob
• tom
• pdiddy
• allie

I am sure there are plenty of others already taken as well. Have you found other names that are already taken? Leave them in the comments and I will update the list.

Tonight the Mashable blog attempted to hold an event where wine man Gary Vaynerchuk was supposed to speak about motivation. There were a baker’s dozen of technical issues so we all moved outside to the corner of 54th and Park Ave. and Gary gave his motivational speech outside.

While I don’t agree with everything he says, it’s worth watching the video. The part where he talks about hustle is very important. So many startups I talk to believe that when they hit "launch" the traffic, orders, users, etc. will just magically arrive. It’s not like that – you need to hustle every minute of every day. When you watch the video, notice what brand you see on Gary’s shirt the whole time – it’s about the hustle.

Here’s his video – enjoy the NYC sounds and note that Gary does use many swear words during his outdoor presentation.

Update: I was able to catchup with Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV and asked him about the move today. He said, “I love REV3 and the people there and sometimes you need to adjust to the market and see what works and doesn’t and I love those guys and wish all of them super well and hope they Kill it and do nothing but awesome things! As for Wine Library Tv I will continue to Crush it on winelibrarytv.com everyday!”

Update 2: On the TWIT podcast last night, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis said regarding the staff size at Revision3, “30 (staff) is kind of high for that kind of company.”

Revision3 has announced some major show changes today. Epic-Fu will no longer be carried by Revision3 at the end of December and the Wine Library TV show will be removed as of today. Several other shows have also been cut. CEO Jim Louderback also noted that they are working on a variety of new shows that may hit the lineup soon. Wine Library TV joined the lineup back in June with a slimmed down version of their daily show. Louderback notes the huge popularity of Diggnation as one of their “winners”.

Mashable is also reporting that some staff members at Revision3 were fired today including their head of business development Damon Berger. It’s important to note that we will never know the real reason for these people being let go.

In other online video news, Robert Scoble has announced that he is “restructuring” his WorkFastTV show which is broadcast live from the Revision3 offices. No further details have been provided about this restructuring. I think the show has made some good overall progress since I provided my initial commentary and suggestions for improvement this summer. I’d like to see them make the site a bit more friendly. Remember that with video you could be sitting on the site for quite a while, make the appearance relaxing and engaging.

As I create more videos and have more discussions with online video talent, the conversation seems to move many times to finding the optimum hosting and distribution structure for video. I want to make sure my viewers never hit a dead end and can easily find other videos to view from the series. Since at least half of my videos are business-oriented, the idea of putting them on YouTube and hoping for the "viral effect" is not attractive. Earlier this year I wrote about the online video market here in NYC and I see it continuing to expand today.

Currently I am using Viddler almost exclusively for my videos. I like Viddler because their player allows for in-stream commenting and their upload function is easy-to-use. I find the uploading function on YouTube to be absolute crap, can’t they even offer an upload status bar?!? For the purposes of this discussion, we will only discuss pre-recorded video content and not live services (Mogulus, Ustream) or mobile video streaming (Kyte, Qik, Flixwagon).

I get the idea behind services like TubeMogul which put your content everywhere and I will probably look at doing this as well. But it’s critical from my standpoint that you select a video sharing/hosting partner to work with in which you can build your video brand. This means that the player that’s used on the video creator’s site remain consistent over time. Some video content creators are being paid to use services and I see this trend continuing as the video creation market expands and hosting networks fight to get out of the commodity business.

There are a number of indie video stars on the scene today. I’ve selected Justine and Gary Vaynerchuk to use as examples with regards to how they use various video hosting networks for their videos and shows. When I check out Justine’s Web site, she seems to use YouTube as her first choice and it’s clear that this strategy has helped her with growing her brand. Justine has over 18,000 subscribers on YouTube. These subscribers drive massive views to her videos. She uses Viddler as well for some videos and all of her videos are distributed there as well. Gary Vaynerchuk at WineLibraryTV uses Viddler for the main player on the site. Gary also has a distribution deal with Revision3 which publishes a shorter wine show on Revision3 and other video hosting providers including YouTube.

There are more options than ever for video hosting – from the most basic YouTube through working with distribution partners like ForYourImagination who can produce, record and package the shows. Viddler, Vimeo, Veoh all sit in the middle and I’d consider blip.tv a "show" distributor.

Below is the setup I have been considering for the videos I create on CN. My goal is to find the best combination of:

• reaching the largest audience
• using the best technology
• using a player with good usability for the viewer
• outside distribution to as many sources as possible
• tracking and analytics
• ability to monetize the videos over time — either with cpm views or finding a sponsor

Business Shows:

These are videos I shoot of product demos and also include our interviews like the one we shot with Dina Kaplan last week. I am looking at using blip.tv for these videos. blip.tv can offer me a gallery player to allow viewers to watch any video they like. blip.tv also has an advertising network and also works with shows to find sponsors. This is very attractive to me – especially in the beginning. blip.tv will also distribute the shows to iTunes which could work relatively well for creating loyal viewers.

Fun Videos:

These videos include the Twitter Song and How to Effectively Quit Blogging. I see continuing to post these videos on Viddler because the interactivity and community there is a perfect fit for these videos.

Conclusion

I’d love some feedback on my thoughts and suggested video network usage for CN. What am I missing in creating the right mix? The next mission is to get a better video setup and move away from my tiny Canon Elph to something a bit more professional.

Editor’s note: I am not paid (nor have I been) for using any video service to-date.

Revision3 is announcing this morning that they have signed Gary Vaynerchuk and his hit show Wine Library TV. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Revision3 will also begin to create a shorter version of Gary’s shows as the current show typically runs 20+ minutes. The new show is called Wine Library Reserve which is a 5-minute version.

Anyone who knows Gary knew this deal was coming. Why? Simple. Gary is always with the Digg fellas and seems to be a normal fixture around the Revision3 gang. Gary’s current star power with the young set nearly matches that of Digg founder Kevin Rose.

What does this mean for video sharing service Viddler? They had been hosting the Wine Library TV show and were the video choice on the actual Wine Library TV Web site. Viddler announced last month that they are a distribution point for Revision3′s shows so perhaps nothing will change.