The “YouTube Clone” promotions
May 22, 2007 – 11:49 am
The script being promoted by Steve Johns has been around for quite some time now. Steve offers it for $7, and I can say with certainty that it’s not worth it’s price. First of all, the script itself is a poorly written sad excuse of a resource-hogger. If you want to base a site around it, you’d have to get dedicated hosting. If you expect more than 5 visitors that is. The cost of getting it customised to actually work as intended and not just being a resource-thief would accumulate to a lot more than $7… A LOT more.
Second – it’s available for free at giveaways and on a lot of membership-sites.
Third – it’s being marketed as a “YouTube clone”. That is just false advertising. It’s not a clone of YouTube. It’s not a clone of anything, luckily. If any serious service around would be based on this script, the owners would be losing a lot of money.
Fourth – every sales page I’ve seen on this script, both the ones offering it for free and the ones trying to get you to shell out money for it, keeps pointing out that YouTube was sold to Google for a ridiculous amount of money. So what? Sites based on this script is not likely to be sold for billions of dollars. Not even millions. What you could do is get a cheap hosting account, set up the script, get some custom graphics made, and then turn around and sell it on ebay or some other auction site. You won’t be getting a ton of money for it, but the turnaround time on this would be fairly quick, and if you get a really good domain-name for it, you could flip it for cash.
I’d most definitely advice you to stay away from that script, unless you’re into site-flipping.
It’s crap. That’s basically it.
5 Responses to “The “YouTube Clone” promotions”
Oooooh. You sure are outspoken. I like that.
I’ll have to stop by again and see what else you have to say!
By Dena on May 22, 2007
Bjorn,
I just bookmarked your blog due to the scathing critique of the crappy “YouTube” script. The internet marketing world needs more honesty and you really nailed this one perfectly.
I too have this script from one of the hundreds of giveaways I’ve signed up for and you couldn’t be more right about it.
It doesn’t work without making radical changes to the script. It’s a MAJOR resource hog. (Make sure you’re on good terms with your web hosting service before you bring down the server your website running this script is on. lol)
Steve Johns should know better. Shame on you Steve!
My advice is the same as Bjorn’s. Avoid this script like the plague!
Thanks for a brutally honest review Bjorn. I can’t wait for the next nugget of truth!
Jeff
By Jeff Penchoff on May 22, 2007
Dena: Thank you
Jeff: Exactly. Sometimes it seems like marketers pick up a freelancer at scriptlance, have them do a quick-n-dirty hack, and then sell the source claiming the product is the best thing since sliced bread. They wouldn’t be caught using the script themselves, not seriously anyways, but they sure know how to make people buy.
Steve has actually pushed a couple of good products back when he teamed with Bruce, but lately it’s old stuff with new prices. It’s a shame really…
By Bjorn on May 22, 2007
Love your frankness mate. Thanks
By Father Dave on May 22, 2007
Thanks for having the guts to stand above the horde who praise almost every new (or recycled) product that they hear about, prostituting their reputation for as little as $7 !
The only way I think these guys get away with it is that they target resellers and “collectors”, who never actually try to use the products they buy
By article David on May 28, 2007