Blip.tv Acquired By Video-Blog Killers Maker Studios

Blip.tv, er Blip Networks, Sacks CEO Kelly Day: Shortest Exec Career Since John Paul I

Blip.tv, the video sharing site that was created by a team lead by Mike Hudack and Dina Kaplan, is dead. It’s now called “the old Blip.tv” and has been replaced by something owned by that horrible video-channel eating company network Maker Studios. (Mike and Dina left Blip in 2012.)

And if you’re asking “Is that the same Maker Studios that took YouTube Partner Ray William Johnson’s Google AdSense account and never gave it back to him? The same Maker Studios that pushed Pew Die Pie at us on YouTube? The same Maker Studios that was founded by Danny Zappin, Lisa Donovan (LisaNova on YouTube), Scott Katz, Derek Jones and Will Watkin? The same Maker Studios that’s involved in a nasty lawsuit between Mr. Zappin and the others, including his ex-girlfriend Lisa Donovan?

The answer is yes.

Oh, and my issue with Pew Die Pie:

(And I wonder, if there are 12 million real Pew Die Pie subscribers, why don’t those huge numbers translate to giant Twitter followings or enormous search engine trend results? Something’s up and smells bad here.)

This new Blip.tv doesn’t want Zennie62 as part of its lineup, supposedly after discovering I was earning money from the stock of videos that had been accumulated there but really because Maker Studios is mad that I dissed their Pew Die Pie content. Look, I asked people on the street if they ever heard of Pew Die Pie and they said no. If you have 12 million subscribers on YouTube, people should know about you, right? So why do I have more name recognition than Pew Die Pie?

But back to the main point: for a host of reasons, I’d stopped uploading videos to the Blip.tv at Zennie62 account on a regular basis as far back as 2009. The design of the Blip.tv platform did not provide for rapid video exposure, unlike YouTube.

Now, this new Maker Studios Blip.tv has been recast into some kind of gate-keeper of online, or “web TV” shows it thinks will be successful, and that look like something on television. In other words, the new Blip.tv has gone more into show-making than the previous incarnation ever cared to be about.

The new Maker Studios’ Blip.tv is a video-blog killer, and not because of their action against Zennie62, Maker Studios has a written disclaimer that it does not want Blip.tv to be a video-sharing site.

There is a silent war against video-blogging, with some platforms actively pursuing “episodic” shows and not life-casting, the purest form of video-blogging. In other words, in attempting to build a network of online TV shows, the act of using video to tell your story is being spiked.

Well, keep on spiking Maker Studios, because the void your trying to create will come back to eat you alive. You can’t kill vlogging.

As for the new Blip.tv not wanting Zennie62, I say good.

I do not like Maker Studios’s business practices, and its too bad they’ve gained $60 million to buy more places to own online video content – they claim to own 60,000 channels, which translates to a lot of suckers on YouTube who’ve given up control, not to mention Google AdSense money to them.

Not that I’m calling Ray William Johnson a sucker, but…

If Maker Studios approaches you, run!

On the other hand, it’s not a bad thing at all, because it means that Zennie62Media can step in and so the same thing, but with a more ethical approach. And beyond that, it speaks to the growing value of online video content.

So, on second thought, thanks Maker Studios. Thanks a lot!

Stay tuned.