• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, October 8, 2014

Last weekend, Maker Studios had a little event at Disney Studios, which is not at all odd because Disney now owns them. But the criss-cross of “little” companies (like Maker once was) made big (by companies like Disney, and The Chernin Group and others) is a  sign of online video growing into adult clothing.

But right now, most of the content creating seems to first come through YouTube where Maker and Fullscreen and StyleHaul and many others have created their multi-channel networks. The business is at the point  that more and more of those YouTube MCNs will strike out out on their own, and use YouTube as a kind of second home base.

Samantha Bookman at Fierce Online Video recently wrote a pretty thoughtful piece about how the creators on those MCNs are migrating to do their own things, or going other places, like Vimeo and Dailymotion, that let YouTube entrepreneurs control more of their own destinies, and pocketbooks.

As she points out, YouTube takes a 45% advertising cut, and MCNs take some more, leaving the creators holding a bag that is not nearly as full of money as it might be.

She cites Nerdist, which a few months ago worked with JWPlayer to create a custom player for the Nerdist Website, which went on to launch Weird Al Yankovic’s new parody album, "Tacky," exclusively.

It got 8 million video views and 10 million page views in its first 72 hours, Bookman reports -- a huge traffic spike for the Website that was handled through JW Player. Keeping content like that  at home (it went to YouTube after) lets the content creator try to set a CPM that, JWPlayer’s research says, can often be higher than the YouTube cut. It sounds a little like a theatrical window.  

Similarly, another outfit -- iLook -- allows YouTubers to economically create apps, so that a creator doesn’t get lost in all the music videos, gaming sites and kittens, and that might be a way to go. A downside is that creators give up more of their revenue. The upside -- and a huge one -- is that the migration of video to mobile devices makes it seem like a good idea to have your own storefront at the shopping mall. You don’t have to enter through the YouTube department store.

It’s an interesting read.

It also reminds me that I got an email from VlogBrother Hank Green the other day, after I had written that he was among those content creators who complained in the past that YouTube made it tough for guys like him, and thousands of other creators, to make much money after it takes its cut. Green says he’s never complained.

“I'm fairly certain I've never said that because I definitely don't think that,” he wrote me. “I should write a post about it but, basically, all of the other platforms I contribute content to take 100%. YouTube isn't just a technology platform, they also provide me with a HUGE audience AND sell all my ads. So if you divide that 45% cut up into ad sales, audience development, hosting, and technology...suddenly it doesn't look like a very big cut at all.

“I started on YouTube before the partner program existed though...so the fact that I make money doing this remains a kind of happy accident.”

Green says there is a video from July 2013 “that people often claim has me complaining abut YouTube’s cut.”

In a kind of “open letter” to YouTube he basically asks it to just keep the structure of the place loose, because no one really knows where things are going.

But pretty definitely, a lot of people inside and outside YouTube are trying to figure it out

pj@mediapost.com