You are reading a thread that was started by a small group of people who feel that they have found the so-called 'magic bullet', that's going to fix pool and get all the players the money they deserve for all of the hard work they do in front of the camera.
Actually a larger group of individuals. About 20 of us, just to let you know what's up and how we've grown over the past 5 years. On Site Pool Network is actually a separate channel on the new entity. A large reason why things have changed, is from trial and error with the ideas, we needed a neutral entity and more organization. The foundation is now APBGLOBAL.COM, Associated Pool-Billiards Global, LLC. DBA AP Global Video. Yes. It's a real company with real people. 1-855-750-7665 Ext:2 to reach me.
I have been bothered by 'Goldy' (as he likes to call himself now) about this shite for over 3 years and I will still NEVER drink the Kool Aid, no matter how many new flavors they come in.
I have maybe contacted you 3 times in the last 5 years concerning our efforts. Mike Warden "TvMike" may have contacted you more than I have. But TvMike and Myself are two separate entities. Though I do help TvMike stay as private as he can to elude the free streaming alternatives on the internet.
In my opinion, the best pool players in the world SHOULD be getting paid more, but not from the media. They should be getting better sponsor contracts and higher tournament payouts! The industry should be giving back, but not this part of the industry who are basically still trying to find their own identities as broadcasters. When the industry as a whole starts to improve, then you can wonder about the guys like US, promoting and broadcasting pool. Pay Per View is a different subject entirely and not pertinent to this thread.
You've been broadcasting and promoting pool for 5 years now with live billiard video. You use YouTube as your vehicle for On-Demand, and Ustream as your vehicle to live stream. What do you pay for those services? Have you read the EULA and TOS agreements when you use their free service? Better get to reading up on them, is their pretty damning in claims to the content under certain circumstances. And in these 5 years, where are your large corporate sponsors? Why after so long don't you have any? Because you don't need too. All the large corporate advertisements are already running over your content via YouTube and UStream, that maybe on a good year you reap 1-2%. Sucks, eh?
Something about me...
When I started out streaming pool, it was to promote pool; not solve the problem of how pool players can get raises or get paid more. Being paid more is something that I figured would be a natural progression if the mainstream media and sponsors would begin paying more attention to us. So, my mission is to figure out how to improve on YOUR experience as the viewer. It's a slow process, with my limited resources, but I'm a man of unlimited passion for this sport; so you see the trade off...
I am basically a video journalist of cue-sports and a once-in-awhile, video producer of content, who promotes the players, pool halls, various games and some industry news. That's pretty much it. I made almost 25K this year doing it, and it wasn't all from YouTube. I busted my ass for nights on end doing everything that the various promoters and room owners couldn't do for themselves. I work very hard to promote my sponsors and in return, they pay me a modest fee that is just about agreeable. To top it off, I probably put about 30% of this year's earnings back into POV POOL so that I could continue to bring the viewers as much live action as possible. I don't think I should even begin to bring into view the importance of exposing pool-players to the world and what is has done for the industry in the past 10 years. Simply put, live streaming has saved a lot about pool that was dying... and if you really, really, really, really must know my opinion; I personally feel that if if wasn't for live streaming in the past 10 years, the 9 foot table would be virtually missing from the pool halls and the pool halls themselves would be shrinking into oblivion.
There is no doubt what you do is GREAT for pool, has been GREAT for pool, and continues to be GREAT for pool. This post was not the intention to single out your passion and make you a bad person. The post is not singling out anyone. The ORIGINAL POST is informative to what is REALLY HAPPENING behind the scenes that, ALL OF US are supporting in some form or fashion, INDIRECTLY. I understand you may not have the expertise or experience to whip up a scenario where you could corner all the amenities that YouTube and Ustream provide. So WE ALL UNDERSTAND, why we use those free services in trade for the content. It's actually quite a good way to get exposure. But Financially, it is DOOMED, for the creator of the content, the players, and the sponsors.
What I'm trying to accomplish for pool goes beyond pointing a camera and a pool table, commenting, promoting the pool room, the players, and the products. It's an new vehicle for live billiard streamers to take advantage of new technology to reach the world WITHOUT trading the videos for the service, and putting the videos in a LOSE/LOSE situation FOREVER. Because that is the prized glory. Is the video after its been captured/created. With the YouTube/U-Stream model, there's no way to protect the video and its value down the road. It's like receiving a 20 dollar bill, spending it, and it becomes nothing after it is spent. Today, with the amount of videos on YouTube, there is plenty of exposure for the sport for the next 100 years. So using the "pool needs exposure" card is irrelevant.
Now, about this "NON-YouTube Business Model" (AKA 'THE SPINNING WHEEL OF DEATH")
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Let's speculate for a minute that every billiard/pool media provider in the country abandon's their YouTube model and joins the 'ONSITE POOL NETWORK', which is Zach Goldsmith's dream; his passion project that will turn him into the Ted Turner of pool media and create jobs and success for millions of amateur pool players who end up on the live stream table every month at Hard Times Billiards and at Skinny Bobs 9-Ball Tournament/s.
They would be joining a neutral entity. AP GLOBAL Video, which provides all the amenities at one place to successfully and privately live stream to the world and limiting 3rd parties with rights to the content (YouTube/Ustream/Etc.). Its more or less a AV Video Web on steroids. We offer a cloud hosted solution for live streaming to all over the world to all devices. Flash, HLS, MPEG-Dash, RTSP, RTMP, and HDS. Also on-demand streaming, or file streaming to protect videos from being ripped off, ripped, and stolen. Membership gateways for the content that directly link to the persons PayPal or Stripe accounts. You can do free streams and PPV streams with the only cost being the Credit Card Fee's.
There have been many things that have changed in my approach since TvMike was let go, and he could go do his things on his own. Some of the first ideas he is using, is working quite well, except a huge hurdle is keeping members subscribed. Which is something that is going to happen. Also, with personal experiences and personal life issues, that could diminish a subscriber base by 50%, is not a good situation a company is to be in to be successful.
So, now everyone's media has stopped uploading to YouTube and all YOU (the viewer) has to do is pay $5.99 a month to watch THE ONSITE POOL NETWORK, where you can access, TAR, InsidePool, Kevin Kidd, TV Mike, POV Pool, Accu-Stats, CSI, Mezz Tour, Predator Tour, Tiger Tour, Romanian Pyramits Tour, Jason Hunt's Porno Pool, Crazy Erica's Spinning Wheels of Death and much, much, more...
Actually, it is encouraged to use YouTube. Except. YouTube should be used as the excerpt/teaser to drive most of the traffic to your own website. Which is the proper eCommerce solution to gaining the highest percentages of revenue from advertisements ON YOUR WATCH.
In a perfect world, it's actually not a bad idea. Take pool back into our own hands and own the media for ourselves so that we can monetize it ourselves and reward ourselves for our hard work and yes, this includes the players as well...Furthermore, If someone where to show me a proposal that makes sense, is transparent and good for the industry, then I'm all ears.
It's a very neat idea that Myself and many others have been working on. It's a shame you've listened to all the hype and negative information, and haven't once phoned me to discuss. I'm actually shocked.
(Costs to consider for just a brief moment - Bandwidth, Player Royalties, Network Agreements, Admin, Hosting, Legal, Promotions, Creative, Production, Post Production)
All those costs are taken care of at AP GLOBAL Video. We provide all those amenities for $20/mo. What you don't mention here, is 24/7 Tech Support. Which is always available to help get the most from the technology we host. AP GLOBAL provides dedicated hosting. The only thing that is shared, is the user base of all sites who use the service. This eliminates a customer service nightmare. You get to even use your own Domain Name, and your domain name is shown in the address bar. It's a perm 301 redirect.
First off, if this were even remotely possible to accomplish, let's say that just 15 premium streamers were to jump onto Goldy's network - IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN, but let's say it does...You've now just bottlenecked your audience by over 50% because there's no way to get a large number of the free audience to turn to a subscription model. So, now you've reduced your audience...OOPS there goes almost 70% of the sponsors that you used to have because nobody is even watching this crap anymore now that it's a mere $5.99 a month.
Damn - I just lost half my audience and sponsors! What does POV do now? Help me, Jason Hunt. Pick up the phone, CrazyErica!
- Okay so, 10,000 people aren't paying $5.99 a month, but let's say 4,500 are paying it... (Sound Crazy?)
Cool! Your company is now making $26,955 per month.Selling 15 channels of pool content from different providers, all with their own special brand of storytelling that makes this network so awesome!
Not true. With AP Global, it doesn't matter if you want to do a membership based content on-demand or free. Its all up to what you want to do. Our main goal at AP Global is to get everyone using our vehicle to live stream, so down the road we can leverage, all together, advertising revenue, and get much much more, instead of the pennies YouTube or others Pay. Please do not listen to TvMike. He is no way associated with AP GLOBAL Video, and the sites we currently host for live video marketing. However, I DO HELP TvMike to keep his existing platform running smooth from a backend standpoint. I'm his IT/Unix Admin Guy.
4 years ago, when I didn't even know you Zach, I gave you a chance to pitch me properly... I asked for a proposal or something on paper and you balked...
4 years ago, it was still very new concept, and totally nothing was on paper. It was a bunch of code gobbled on a server, that worked for the purpose of evading the EULA, TOS, contracts of the free streaming services. So if we did have a winner video, it wouldn't be lost to someone else, or someone else telling us what to do.
Today. We host 10 sites with prominent figures in the billiard indsutry, and I look forward to serving them as CUSTOMERS, and doing what they ask me to do, instead of the other way around, which is because of the limitations the YouTube/U-stream model provide from a exclusivity standpoint. The major resolve of AP GLOBAL Video, is eliminating all 3rd party branding that shouldn't be there.
I will say one redeeming thing about you, Zach!
Good job on the Space City Open and a nice new look for your website. Your streaming looks very clean and my hat is off to you. I am always thoroughly impressed and proud of people who make vast improvements to their show because after all, that's what we should be doing.
MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!
Same to you Danny. We all work hard for pool!
I think you have some great objections to this approach, but at least I hope I've solved some of those misconceptions and doubts.
MERRY CHRISTMAS To you and yours as well.
Zach "Goldy" Goldsmith
