Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “16 Years of YouTube: Why I stayed”.
There were a lot of times over the past 14 or so years that I almost quit YouTube uh when things were really bad and hard, and I imagine, throughout your life, there’s probably times where you thought about walking away, changing directions or trying to figure out something That you need to change in your life uh. In my case, I decided to stick with what I loved decided to stick with YouTube after techno, Buffalo, sale, double down and kind of refined. My passion and 2021 and 2022 were very vindicating years for me, um that it was worthwhile to make that transition. No, not everybody’s fortunate enough to say that at least, but I wanted to share JFL as a whole, which is sort of the company that the YouTube channel is under and a lot more. I think a lot of you guys, maybe don’t know everything, that’s happening here and things that we’re working on and things that I am doing so start by recapping 2022.
uh. It was a very busy year for me and the YouTube channel uh and it’s getting me excited for. What’S going to be coming in 23. and again, like I said, as I was thinking about it, I realized that a lot of you, especially new viewers uh to this channel, might think that this is the only thing that I’m working on uh. In fact, in a lot of ways it is one of the smallest parts of the things that I’ve been working on.
So I run a company called JFL Network John Ford, Lakers uh, that’s what came after techno, Buffalo uh was sold so right now we have seven people that have the pleasure to work with that help, make everything that you guys see a reality. We’Ve also have a lot of other projects you may have seen, but didn’t know were created actually under the same roof and these other projects really bloated this year, and I am really proud of the trajectory that we are on. I wanted to share we’ve been doing and sort of how we’re thinking about these products moving forward and also kind of tell you guys about them.
So for me, I’m gon na start on a personal note. Uh 2022 is kind of the year. I learned to create things I’m proud of, and also how to stay at least try how to stay relevant while doing it so YouTube is my bread and butter start this channel back in 2007, which is probably for some of you guys before you’re, even born, which Seems like a lifetime ago, and in that time the channel has gone through multiple, revamps and and refreshes, and it’s been tough to get through some of those times. I’Ve shared the stories of times I almost quit and when things are really bad but I’ll be able to find my love of video again and that’s been really awesome to see and to say the channel. I think for a lot of it is very good. Now everything that I’m going to talk about inside of JFL, the John Retton YouTube channel, is kind of the thing that is able to pay for a lot of this.
So certainly you’ve seen a fair share of sponsored videos on that channel. It’S kind of a necessary evil. I guess of running a business I like to to work to find a better balance. I think in next year we can sponsored uh and non-sponsored and my goals for 23 on the genre interchange I like to do more car videos. We did a lot of really big car videos, the the Lucid, Peruvian and Hummer. I absolutely loved making those videos big huge Studio, shoots.
It was a ton of fun. I would like to do more of those videos, and I mentioned the seven people that I work with are incredibly talented. I would like to give those folks the opportunity to make videos that they want to make fashion projects for them and sort of have me, maybe just be a small part of sort of helping share their story or or their Vision. But the John Ranger channel is not the only YouTube channel at JFL. This guy, you may have seen him heard his voice. This here is Robert Rosenfeld, and he is the host of the Apple Circle, which is our Apple Focus channel that he has absolutely killing it with fun fact about Robert.
He actually joined back in the Techno Buffalo days as an intern when he was still in college. At Chapman uh – and it’s just been a nuts Talent all the way through started off as an editor and then did some stuff on camera. For the John rettinger, It ultimately became the face of the Apple Circle which, since deception, has done just under 20 million views. As 266 or so thousand subscribers, I am really proud of seeing the growth of that channel.
It’S been really awesome to be behind the scenes and sort of share expertise and share some thoughts, and that Robert just run with it and all the success. The Apple circles had has been because of him because he’s editing those videos he’s coming up with a lot of his own topics, and it’s just been incredible to to watch to see and how he conducts himself. And I have no doubt that 2023 is going to be incredible for Robert and the Apple Circle, fun fact about Robert too. He also pinched hits to edit videos on the Jr side and do the big story, videos. So the Microsoft Surface. Video was actually a Robert scripted video and a Robert edited video uh, so YouTube is where I got my start and it’s what I bet my career on. I still absolutely love it um and I can’t wait to see how the platform changes and what we can do to sort of push the limits on YouTube is that platform seems to be a living thing and, as always, uh kind of changing and speaking of changing, You haven’t noticed the video landscape is morphing. A lot in the past few years has been focused a lot on short form.
It does appear it’s going to be taking things over and knowing that big push for JFL in 2022 was short form content, both on YouTube, Tick, Tock or even Snapchat. I wanted to try to better understand YouTube shorts, different algorithm, how it worked, and we wanted to do that on its own channel, which is dedicated to shorts, did not expect to happen. What happened so we have a channel called Interstellar news, hosted by the incredible JD Prevost that I’ll talk about this channel has been live for about five months um and has done about 278 million views uh we’re at about a hundred and eleven thousand subscribers uh.
We’Re sharing stories of space news, space exploration theories about space um. It’S just been Bonkers to see the growth here on YouTube shorts. It reminds me a lot of the early days of YouTube and things are just absolutely exploding uh.
So the plan here is very much stay the course in 2023, with Interstellar news. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Try to stay ahead of the algorithm is a huge push here. I’M gon na try to get from 110 000 subscribers we’re at right.
Now. It’S ultimately end the year without double that we can get to 225 000 subscribers by in 2023 I’ll consider the year a success, and I mentioned it’s hosted by JD Prevost, who shared with us that he always wanted to be a science teacher, but never an opportunity To do it, um JD edits a ton between JD and Courtney uh edit. Almost all the videos here at JFL JD is an incredible Talent, uh, even better person to see him get. Some success on the YouTube side has been absolutely awesome to see.
Tick. Tock has been weird uh. I was late to the game uh on on Tick Tock. As this filming, we crossed the tick tock channels that we have and I’ll talk about them all about 460 000 followers.
There uh, the biggest one, is Interstellar news over three hundred thousand uh. We have apple Circle there as well um, and some other shows that I’ll talk about in a few minutes shows that are focused on Tesla news and then just my own personal one. There I would love to see Tick. Tock get a better handle on monetization because their creator fund is might as well not even exist. Um the one short platform we’ve been in it for a while is actually snap and a lot of people. Think of Snapchat.
It’S just a chat, app uh with some cool filters, but actually they launched a program a few years ago that, like creators, actually create original content for the platform and then monetize that so we’ve created a lot of new channels, uh in fact um. We did over 33 million unique views uh on Snapchat across our seven shows that we have there. So we’ve got the John rettinger show General Tech uh. We got the Apple Circle, Interstellar news geekseat, which is a show that I host talking about Marvel news.
Super signal show that Matt Gonzalez uh hosts uh talking all about DC news direct charge, also hosted by Matt Gonzalez, a bunch of Tesla news. There true shock um, which is uh. You have to see it to really understand what true shock is hosted by uh, AI um, and that’s been sort of our growth that we’ve had on Snap, but not everything has been a success. Uh we had a few shows that we had to, like I say, Sunset, really we just axed. We just show focused on anime called anime Ultra, which just did not resonate uh.
We had a lot of success with geekseat and Marvel news. We try to do sort of a top five Marvel show that did not work uh as well, so it hasn’t all been huge successes here. We definitely had our fare of of setbacks. Also um, snap is maps are incredible from a revenue standpoint. It’S also been really incredible from growth, but, as it’s grown, more people have come over to the platform.
So now it’s harder to get shows new shows to be seen. Snap has had a lot of turnover as well it’s hard to get even a rep on the phone or reply to an email, because you don’t really know who’s there anymore uh. It was fun to see the growth of snap early on. I think in 2023 focused on just maintaining uh the chance that we already have and try to continue to grow those as opposed to starting new ones.
So I have learned a lot over the the years. I’Ve been doing YouTube a lot of it. I’Ve learned from that I have made um, but sort of best practices for the online moving forward is kind of how I wanted to end this video uh. There is a lot of value in short form content, and we started with potentially with Interstellar news. People are debating starting new YouTube channels, but I think they should focus a lot of attention on short form. If there’s been any company that can figure out how to get a platform out get creators on it, and then the creators monetize that content, it is Google and YouTube, and I would trust them to figure out shorts very quickly when they do figure it out.
I expect to see Tick Tock. My big change is their motivation side as well sort of give creators a better chance to monetize that content, the platforms to network good uh, it’s really only as good as the creators that are on it. So that’s my small bit of advice. I’M thinking about starting a YouTube channel think about shorts. It’S usually a lot easier to create content. It’S shorter! You have to be sharper about it.
It’S only 59 seconds to sort of tell a story um, but I would really recommend looking into it. It’S been really rewarding to kind of see how that happened. It’S got a bit of, I guess a rambly type, video um, maybe a little bit pat on the backy, not as much as I intended, but uh.
I just wanted to share the things that we’ve been working on here at JFL uh. It’S not just this YouTube channel. It’S a lot more. I wanted to highlight a lot of people behind the scenes who make a lot of this stuff happen. Make a lot of this content work and people that I didn’t mention. This video got Courtney right. There who’s editing, uh this video we’ve got Alec who’s running our studio and editing a lot of our snap videos.
We’Ve got Brady, who had it’s almost all of our snap videos out there there’s a lot of people that make this company work and a lot of times. I think very wrongfully get credit for things that I really had no business doing um. So it’s a highlight. Folks, who made this happen and to remind everybody out there that, if you’re thinking about changing direction, sometimes it’s the right decision, sometimes stay in the course refocusing is also a really good way to go.
I wish you and your family a wonderful 2023. Hopefully the world heals a little bit and becomes a little bit of a safer, just healthier place. .