Congratulations to Devin and Erica, whose YouTube channel DevinandErica is our featured “On The Rise” partner this February. These loving parents have documented their family’s development, creativity, and silliness on YouTube for over three years, and today they’re featured in the spotlight on the YouTube home channel, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.
This channel was born when Erica was pregnant with the couple’s eldest daughter, whom they affectionately refer to as ‘Baby Bug.’ Their ‘reality show’ on YouTube has grown to include a variety of content ranging from vlogs to homemade skits to original songs, and this fun-loving family has developed a dedicated following. In fact, support from their viewers helped them with the expense of a second IVF cycle, and Devin, Erica, and Bug welcomed baby ‘DudeL’ about six months ago. After more than three years and 300 videos on YouTube, Devin and Erica have amassed a library of heartwarming moments – get to know their family with channels classics like the ABCs ‘Baby Jam’ and Devin’s baby proposal, and then check out some of the other fun videos in the playlist linked below.
Here are a few words directly from Devin:
We would like to thank our subscribers first and foremost. Without you, we would not have come so far within this community. For that our utmost appreciation will now and always play the biggest role. Our subscribers have helped us grow as a YouTube Partner, as well as a family by helping give us a son just by watching and following our crazy family. For those who have not seen us before, our channel is packed full of family fun! We do vlogs, skits, and original songs about our crazy life and family in Charlotte, NC. We like to have fun and would love to have you with us! Thank you for watching and we look forward to you joining our journey.
If you’ve enjoyed this monthly On The Rise blog series, and want to see more rising YouTube partners, check out our Google Hangouts with past featured partners on the YouTube Creators channel.
You can participate and help us surface YouTube talent by nominating a YouTube partner to be considered for the “On The Rise” program. Feel free to submit nominations for your own channel, or for channels you follow that you think deserve more attention or could be the next YouTube sensation. We’ll continue to feature promising partners who have fewer than 100,000 subscribers and produce engaging content on a regular basis. See you next month!
We’re always working to bring to you the latest tips and updates so you can make the most of your YouTube experience. One of the benefits of being a YouTube partner is your ability to monetize your uploaded content, and we have a few best practices and guidelines to help you understand the monetization process. Read on to review some of the commonly-asked questions and our suggestions for how you can maximize your YouTube earnings!
Keep in mind these monetization basics:
Create an AdSense account. You can enable video monetization and display ads without associating an AdSense account with YouTube, but in order to be paid you’ll need to create – and associate – an AdSense account.
Enable relevant ad formats. Set your monetization ad defaults, and allow all ad types that are relevant for your videos.
Look at the monetization symbol next to your video.
Videos with a grey “$” button are not yet monetized.
Videos with a green “$” button have been enabled for monetization
Videos with an orange “!” symbol next to them indicate that YouTube might need more information to approve your video for monetization. In that case, check your Video Manager and your e-mail.
Make sure you own commercial use rights before you monetize.
Whenever possible, take the opportunity to be creative – create your own unique audio and visuals!
If you want to monetize a video that contains audio or visuals you didn’t personally create, you’ll need the content creator to provide express written permission for commercial use. If you have written permission to use third-party material, be sure to mention/include it when you publish a video or when asked to provide information for monetization.
Check the licenses for any audio you include, and where possible, use royalty-free music that’s licensed for commercial use.
Remember that fair use is a tricky subject. Don’t assume you can monetize third-party content because you’ve claimed it as fair use.
Going forward, don’t forget to:
Keep your AdSense account in good standing. Encouraging viewers to click on your ads, or clicking on them yourself, is strictly prohibited. Learn more here.
Do your homework to understand whether you actually own commercial use rights. Purchasing a song, game, or program may not mean you own the rights to monetize, and there could be consequences for claiming content you don’t own.
Create family-friendly content that advertisers want to sponsor. Keep in mind some advertisers have a family audience and may not want their ads appearing next to content containing profanity, offensive, or derogatory language/images.
Review our policies. Make sure you’re familiar with our spam policies and avoid spamming your viewers.
Follow our audience development best practices outlined in the Creator Playbook to build your fan base and increase views and watch time. Using misleading tags, thumbnails, and metadata may give your fans a negative viewing experience, reduce your watch time, and could affect your monetization status.
Thanks again for helping make the YouTube partner community so vibrant. We hope you find these tips useful, and if you have any additional questions, don’t forget about the resources YouTube makes available: monetization tips and audience development best practices abound in the YouTube Help Center, the Playbook, the Partner Forum, the Creator Hub, the YouTube Creators channel and here on the YouTube Creator Blog.
Vasiliki Kanistra & Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “Kittens On The Beat.”
Should the world be scared because Iran’s new stealth fighter is impossible to see in the air? On the surface, complete invisibility might sound like a great attribute for a stealth fighter. In the case of Iran’s newest bird, the reason you will never see it in the air is because it’s likely unable to fly.
It’s very similar to the story from earlier a couple of weeks ago when the Iranian press released images of their successfully recovered astromonkey that turned out to be a different monkey from the one they actually launched. This time, instead of trying to fool the world with a new monkey, they decided to apply Photoshop to the deception. Nobody can tell whether or not an image has been Photoshopped, right?
To make matters worse, many experts say that the Qaher-313, Iran’s second domestically built jet, couldn’t fly over the mountains if it tried.
The jet, said to combine the features of the US F-35 and the F-22 fighters, could not fly because it was too small and made of plastic, critics claimed. Lacking rivets and bolts, the plane was a miniature model or a working prototype at best, aviation experts said.
They should probably get back to building their nuclear device that they claim is being produced for peaceful energy reasons only. At least that lie is so obvious that bloggers won’t bother embarrassing them over it.
It’s been seven years since the giant, boxy, expensive, hugely-fun and hyped PS3 first arrived. Seven years is a long time. But the next expensive, gorgeous era of gaming is here: the PlayStation 4. Everything looks better, yes, but it’s definitely more of the same. More »
A zettabyte. Let’s put that amount of data into perspective.
That’s 1024 exabytes. An exabyte is 1024 terabytes. Now it’s starting to become clear as many people have an idea of how large a terabyte is, but in case you don’t, it’s 1024 gigabytes. Now we’re talking – everyone knows that a gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes. Now that we have a point of reference, take a gigabyte drive and stack 1,099,511,627,776 of them on top of each other. That’s a zettabyte, and that’s what Cisco is predicting for annual data transfers worldwide in three years.
Check out this infographic to get a full scope of it all.
It’s finally time to find out what Sony’s got in store for us. Playstation 4, baby! Watch the embedded stream below to find out what awesome games and features Sony’s gonna unload on us. Get pumped. More »
At the Royal London Children’s Hospital, the children who must be there are treated to amazing technology to make their stay more enjoyable.
Called “Woodland Wiggle”, it is designed to encourage children to be more active while at the hospital. Check out the adorable pictures and video below.
