Hopefully you’ve seen this series before. This is the perfect example of how to launch a new show.
We’ve talked to the MyDamnChannel guys and they are smart and well grounded in both old media and new. Their initial slate was pretty star driven, but none of their shows took off like “You Suck At Photoshop”.
Why?
Well it’s the only show that is of the net really. It embraces several brands that early video adopters also like (Photoshop, WoW, Skype), and above all else it’s funny. It takes the simplest route — they never even show Donny. It’s just a screencast. But everything that show, Donny’s wallpaper, the other stock pix in Bridge, what the files are named, the subject lines in the other emails, all add story and comedy.
And each week they add drama. Awesome.
They also do a lot of smart things businesswise (and a couple of dumb things too). They are growing the traffic on their own site. Huge. This becomes monetizable. They have a podcast of the show too, also a money source.
They also are embeddable (but I’m having a bitch of a time doing it here thanks to WordPress) and I know that places like BoingBoing have put them right on their site.
What they do wrong is — well, I don’t know the producers, but I can guess that they have none of the rights to the desktop backgrounds, to Photoshop itself, or to Skype. If this was a feature film all of those rights would need to be secured just to avoid a potential lawsuit. Not that I’m saying that we as filmmakers shouldn’t just be able to use whatever we want, but this is a litigious society and that’s the current lay of the land.
Also, more importantly, it’s sorta hard to find the episodes. Yousuckatphotoshop.com is owned by someone else, and until recently MyDamnChannel wasn’t even advertising it because it was part of the BigFatBrain channel. They need to at least break it out into a prominent area on the frontpage and have it be its own channel.
But overall, great job. Keep up the good work.
6 Comments
March 28, 2008 at 10:30 am
I’m really enjoying the YSAP brand alot.
Since you mentioned embedding issues, you may already be aware of this, but most WordPress embedding issues can be solved by turning off “Use the visual rich editor when writing” in your WordPress site admin.
Also found this cool looking plug-in to make toggling WYSIWYG easier: http://www.jackhumphrey.com/fridaytrafficreport/reviews/new-wordpress-plugin-toggle-visual-editor/
March 28, 2008 at 11:11 am
Couldn’t see the screen cast because of the advertising covering the lower 33% of the screen…but whateves.
My question is, which came first that show on MyDanmChannel or this blog:
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/
???
March 28, 2008 at 11:15 am
@todd sure, there’s a lot of things about Photoshop out there, but there’s also a lot about ninjas too.
It’s what they bring to photoshop and screencasts in general that makes this show work. We all have access to the same tech that they do, they just combined it all in an interesting way.
March 30, 2008 at 12:42 am
Hey Kent, I’ve been posting these videos on Laughing Squid since they first started showing up, including a post with embedded video of all of the episodes: http://laughingsquid.com/you-suck-at-photoshop-by-donnie-hoyle/
March 31, 2008 at 8:16 pm
When you first told me about “You Suck At Photoshop” I was really tired and it took me FOREVER to find it and once I did I was so beat I gave up on it.
Thanks for blogging about it. When I’m not so tired I’ll just come to your blog to find it.
November 20, 2008 at 2:24 am
I rule at photoshop.
I’d love to see a reality TV programme simulcast on cable & online made about BIG ASS COMPANY BOSSES given simple n00b tasks to do on computers, like “erase the spyware”, reinstate your POP mailbox, put the image on a white background with a shadow, add up these subtotals in google docs, put a 5 page site online from scratch, surviving for 3 minutes in a 1st person shooter deathmatch.
I’m talking the CEO of Ford, .
You do team A: big company bosses
and team B: high school kids
15 minute programme, narrated by one of the original SAIL hackers, funded by adverts from a variety of IT service providers and training companies. Localise the ads online.
The winning team do a traditional paper based number puzzle to win an Alienware laptop.