Micro businesses

[sky]

Similarly, I might very much like an idea, but wouldn't consider myself to be well-suited as on camera presenter/promoter of the idea. Is it common for people to produce a YouTube channel or similar, but round up somebody(s) else to be on camera?

You could write scripts, and have an AI voice read them, with some type of AI generated background.

[Bankai]

AI voice and background can certainly work, but there's a subset of YT viewers who dislike anything AI and especially AI voices. The tools get better and better but you can still tell AI voice from a real thing. Plus, a lot on YT is about being authentic. On th other hand I use AI generated thumbnails and only had a couple of comments re that, not even that negative.

@7 with your expertise on the matter I can already see a very successful mature dating advice or polyamorous channel!

[chenda]

For example, I was a pink octopus on a cable children's television show, and that was fun

Hehe that's brilliant.

I think you're right about the generational difference. I remember first seeing Facebook circa 2007 and being utterly horrified by the concept of having 'pictures-of-yourself-on-the-internet' which had erstwhile being very taboo.

+1 Bankai. How about a podcast @7 ?

[sky]

Microbusiness Idea 297:

Copy all posts by 7w5, run them through an AI Voice Generator with an AI background prompted by the post, and post them on youtube.

[7Wannabe5]

Asking others about their ideas circumvents the need to come up with your own ideas.

Coming up with ideas is not my problem. I just don't want to be on camera unless my identity is blurred into a character or different characters on different channels. I don't mind using my real voice. During my brief stint of employment as phone survey taker, I was frequently mistaken for a recorded voice, and I recently played the voice of Angry Librarian for a professional avant-garde jazz musician's new release.

You could write scripts, and have an AI voice read them, with some type of AI generated background.

Yes, something like that could work if I created a series of basic musical math videos for kids with accompanying notes on new math for their parents. However, I was considering how my beautiful professional dancer niece wanted to make TikTok videos of me on the topic of permaculture with intended audience being her ESFX peer group which is interested in herbal witchcraft. I think it would be better if she was on camera, and I was somehow instructing her on permaculture for herbal witchcraft off-camera. Or it would be really cool if AI could generate something like a tiny claymation version of me that was right down at ground level with the plants. Or my mother, who is of the do-not-give-a-fuck personality type with least camera-shyness, is willing to play the Silver Shark on camera if I do a series on cutting-edge geriatric-assistance technology. I also would like to do specialized weather forecast channel, picture book read aloud channel, online dating advice channel, senior sexual health channel, scavenger walking channel, genealogical research and reunion channel, Etc. etc. etc.

Of course, there is also the very real possibility that my issues with focus and follow-through on the bajillion projects I am capable of generating might come into play.

[jacob]

Coming up with ideas is not my problem. I just don't want to be on camera unless my identity is blurred into a character or different characters on different channels. I don't mind using my real voice.

Instructionals just showing your hand writing out the solution to a math problem, etc.

[7Wannabe5]

Copy all posts by 7w5, run them through an AI Voice Generator with an AI background prompted by the post, and post them on youtube.

Yikes! Good example of what I wouldn't like. Kind of like how I wouldn't want my Sexy Salsa Dancing identity mixing with my Stock Broker identity or my volunteer Big Sister identity (if I had those identities.) My permaculture identity and my polyamorous identity kind of get mixed up with my frugal person identity on this forum, but that is just because I have also participated in discussion forums related to those topics. So, the medium is the same, if not the message (or internal messenger?) IOW, the over-arching mental models I have developed are similar. Or as the author of "Embracing Your Personal Village" might note, they all take place at the same level of social intimacy which he denotes as "the salon." I'm talking about ideas related to frugality, permaculture, or polyamory; I'm not in frugal, permaculture, or polyamorous partnership with anybody on any discussion forum; and I'm not selling anything related to any of these topics within the social space of a forum, etc. etc. I don't think there is anything wrong in going cross-space, cross-identity, cross-purpose in this way; I just don't like it personally for some reason. Maybe just because I am an old person? Or maybe it just doesn't work for my brain; difference between picking up and putting down 3 distinct books I am reading as my interest dictates vs. having all the differently shaped pieces of furniture in my life all upholstered in the same fabric which is just the logo of my personal brand. Like if I got 7WB5 tattooed on my azz and my license plate. Blech. Blech. Double-Blech.

I'm actually so much more towards the opposite on this that I somewhat altered my name for my data science studies/career identity and for my dating identity. I only use the first syllable of my first and last name for data science identity and I use my full first name for dating identity, whereas I go by a nick-name in my family and intimate friend circle. It's kind of amusing to me if/when somebody I am dating rises to level of intimacy that they meet my family/friends and realize that nobody addresses me by my full name. Of the approximately 20 men I've dated since my divorce in 2007, I've only introduced 4 to my family/friend circle (beyond brief introduction in passing.) I really don't like to piss where I sleep, etc. etc. Many of my partners of fairly long duration (2 years plus as monogamous partner and/or 8 years plus as polyamorous partner) are only known to my family as The Yacht Guy or VeryTallGuy, etc. The odd thing is that this has been true even in situations where I did become very integrated in their family/friend circle. I think that this is due to the fact that there is a certain form of male blindness that just thinks of women as portable items that can be picked up and installed wherever. Anyways, I like having different, distinct, little lifestyles or identities, because this creates a more interesting narrative for me.

[theanimal]

@7w5 You can have a YouTube channel with only an avatar without issue. An example worth checking out is Doomberg, an anonymous team that focuses on energy markets. They have the top financial Substack and until they stopped using it, hundreds of thousands of followers on X/Twitter. They frequently are interviewed on YouTube channels and podcasts that have video and they show up as just a green animated chicken with the actual voice of their spokesman.

[7Wannabe5]

@theanimal:

Thanks, I will check out. It also just occurred to me that Hanzi kind of does the same alternate identity creation thing in a fun way. So, maybe not totally due to being an old person.

[sky]

I did a youtube search on: "ai text to speech for youtube"

and turned a paragraph of text into an audio file. (elevenlabs.io)

I downloaded an ai generated youtube video of beautiful beach and mountain scenes, stripped out the audio and used part of the video in a video editor, adding the text audio file. Then exported the new video. (shotcut video editor)

I did a youtube search on: "ai autocaption" and added captions to the video. (opusclip)

It took about 3 hours to learn how to do this.

The video I made was low quality, but with a compelling script and a few stock background videos, it could be much more professional.

I did not try this but apparently for $10 a month, this service will automatically edit and caption your videos with effects. captions.ai

Bonus: you can generate music too: ai-song.ai/

It is nice that these services are available, but I suspect it will lead to many low quality videos filling the youtube feed.

[ffj]

@whitebelt

Youtube is so saturated with polished, heavily edited videos that it is refreshing to find content shot by normal people. You know, some dude that took the time to show us how he fixed his truck and you can too. Or some lady with all of her clothes on showing us how to process tomatoes from the garden.

Unfortunately, and I get it because it can be fun, channels that hammer the same message over and over with anecdotal evidence gets a lot of traction. People want to feel good about their biases.

I don't know how anybody can watch videos narrated by AI voice. I refuse, it hurts my ears. Sort of like listening to autotune on songs. My poor kids have never heard popular songs that weren't heavily engineered and worse they think that is the standard. I feel sorry for their brainwashing.

Somebody has already mentioned it above thread but evergreen videos are the way to go for longevity unless you are just a powerhouse of personality. That's my game-plan at least and it works to a degree. Make them watch your video 10 times to figure out what the hell you are doing.

Evergreen and niche I would think is the way to gain traction along with originality. Which will be copied and stolen quickly but as an originator you could benefit first. Again, unless you are just a powerhouse in charisma you have to find something that differentiates you from the others. I do believe almost anybody can gain an audience, however small. There are a lot of people on this earth and somebody will find you interesting. Are there enough of them to pay your bills? Just call it a hobby like I do.*

* To date, I have made just shy of $3,000, which I have used for guilt-free purchases without remorse. I have no expectations of ever making another dime although I am every day or the need to use this money for anything other than fun. If the whole experiment failed tomorrow I would chalk it as a win regardless. I think this is the right attitude for me.

[zbigi]

Unfortunately, and I get it because it can be fun, channels that hammer the same message over and over with anecdotal evidence gets a lot of traction. People want to feel good about their biases.

I thought about it just today. We used to have TV that had some shows which held itself to fairly high standards. For example, in the US, people like Charlie Rose tried to not display any strong biases, and genuinely cared about finding out the truth. Whereas today it's the opposite - so many channels on YouTube are just like you said - about confirming what people want to hear. The truth and truth-seeking are not even in the equation, it's a very worrying feedback loop. For example, among popular youtubers I watched who cover the war in Ukraine, I can think of just one that's trying to be genuinely informative and hold balanced opinions. Unsurprisingly, his videos are way less exciting vs his competition.

[Jean]

@zbigi
Don't you dare call my favorite black and orange sunday powerpoint "less exciting"
I am also starting a youtube channel. I speak french for now.
My plan is to talk like i usually talk to my dad while walking and filming the landscape.
I bought a microphone.
I already filmed one video, but i find it hard to talk naturally with no one beside me.

[7Wannabe5]

My mini-business was somewhat analogous to a good marriage for me for the 10-12 years it was my primary or only source of income. When I could no longer run it profitably, it was more like becoming a "widow" after your spouse spends several years in declining health than it was like having a marriage fail towards divorce. An idea that occurred to me while considering the difference between a mini-business or a micro-business or the sort of very short term (3 monthes or less) practice entrepreneurial project towards profit recommended by Daniel Priestley, is that maybe a business, especially a mini or micro business, is more like one of the relationships of a dog lover than the relationship of a marriage. If you are the solo or small-preneur type, then you have to accept the likelihood of median mini-micro-business life-cycle being less than your own. If you start at age 12 with your first puppy and/or distributing cards advertising your babysitting or lawn-cutting business, then if you always want to have a business and a dog, you will probably have to train at least 7 puppies and start at least 7 businesses.

NOTE: Feel compelled to complete the analogy with a bit of research that reveals that median length of romantic relationship (humans who describe themselves as in "boyfriend/girlfriend", "seriously dating", or "cohabitating") prior or other than marriage is 17.2 months, and median length of first marriage in U.S. is 21 years. I separated from my first husband after 19 years, but didn't file the divorce until 4 years later, so, as usual, very predictable in my behavior, and I was kind of shocked to also confirm that my mean romantic relationship duration was also exactly 17 months during the years I was strictly monogamous. My mean "not so serious" relationship length when I was strictly serial monogamous was around 6 weeks. Since I have been practicing polyamory, the mean length of both my romantic/serious/cohabitating and "not so serious" relationships has increased signficantly;to 8.5 years for "serious" and 5.5 months (with extremely large variance) for "not so serious", but this may be in good part due to my increased age and that of my partners, but I know that getting off of the "relationship elevator" has also contributed to this huge increase.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to apply this to micro-business formation model inclusive of variations for those who prefer hamsters and/or tortoises as pets.