I've been experimenting with YouTube and I'm debating on whether to publish video demos there or on my own website. Not too happy with the quality of the video on YouTube, but since I've already done the work, I thought I'd post a link here and see what kind of reaction it generates.

http://www.youtube.com/StevenYouell

Steven Youell

That's wonderful stuff!
You now have at least one subscriber

Steven, looks great!

I liked the demo. I understand that the quality is lower on YouTube, but it means people are not using your download limit. Instead, the download burden is being borne by YouTube.

If I see something I like on YouTube, then I can source the high quality original from the vendor.

Kind Regards
Baz

ps when will this be available on DVD?

Another subscriber!

It's very good...added to my list of youtube things worth watching

Another subscriber. Good stuff.

Looks great. another subscriber

Am I missing something? Surely this should NOT be made available for all to see?

This is a nice demo video. I like it, count me in as another sub. The quality is pretty good on YouTube, IMHO.

Hi Steven- saw you name so I wanted to stop by and say hi.

watched the video and its AMAZING!

Thanx again for your help.

jewels

See what????

One of the saving graces of the exposure that is BoobTube, is the fact that most of the stuff is done so badly that laymen seeing it assume it's easy to tell when someone palms, or does a shift, etc.

Now they know that those things can actually be done invisibly.

Great. What's next, demonstrations of invisible thread. Showing how a shell coin can make a coin disappear?

Excellent Video Steven! Very well done! I'll be subscribing as well!

Great stuff Steve.
Thanks for sharing.
John

I was going to compare it's quality to any video I might find on your own website, but it says "The domain stevenyouell.com has expired. If you owned this domain, please contact your domain registration service". You probably should before someone els registers it (and turns it into a mentalist porn site or something).

Well, that is an excellent point. I am still debating over this and am quite willing to discuss it.

The quality of the magic/sleights done on YouTube is indicative to me that most of those people don't know what this stuff is supposed to look like. So although you COULD consider this exposure, it might actually HELP prevent exposure from sleights performed very, very badly. Additionally posting these on a web page would still make the videos available to almost anyone unless I password protect them.

So I'm not sure if the benefits to the magic community (and me) outweigh the negatives or not-- but I do know that it's not as simple problem as it seems. So I am willing to listen to other ideas.

What's your opinion?

Steven Youell

Any video hosted on an unsecured website will eventually be discovered. Once found, people will send links (of the video) to their friends. To protect from 'exposure', would require a password and that would involve either:

1) manually issuing passwords;
2) making a generic password, that magicians would know.

Option 1) involves a lot of work on the part of the website owner, and option 2) is usually so simple that anybody could discover the 'secret' password, and gain access.

If you are concerned about exposure, and you accept the premise of my first paragraph, then I see only 2 solutions.
1) No demo videos to be hosted on any website.
2) Insist that the website owner create individual passwords for each registered user.

I believe that both of these options are impossible to achieve, so we are left with the difficulty of protecting the secret, while demonstrating it to a dispersed community of magi. I believe that Steven's choice is a workable outcome. The sleight is demonstrated very well, but not exposed. People who are prepared to invest the effort will purchase the product. Thus the teaching is spread, while the secret is retained.

High quality sleights performed on YouTube can be an effective tool to allow people to 'see before they buy' what they are paying for. I don't think this video is exposure and I would be happy to see this continue. I also hope that it would prevent poorly performed sleights being uploaded to YouTube.

Regards
Baz

Thanks, Baz. You seem to know a lot about this stuff. If you'd be willing to answer some questions, I'd appreciate a PM.

Other opinions?

Steven Youell

If there is a video on Youtube I am interested in, I will download the mp4 version from a download service such as: keepvid.com/

The quality is then quite good. Even with cable, Youtube is often too choppy.

Jim