Getting Clicks Online: The Cybercommandments

Aug. 10, 2007 &#0151 -- There are hundreds of millions of videos posted on YouTube, the largest video-sharing Web site on the Internet.

The most popular have millions of "clicks," get passed around in e-mails and are imitated and talked about. Yet some videos are viewed only two or three times. What's the difference? We analyzed hundreds of videos, talked to experts, and herewith, a little advice.

So you want to become a YouTube star? Well, join the crowd. Every day hundreds of thousands of videos are shot and uploaded onto the site.

Some are funny like those showing babies laughing hysterically. Some are instructional — you can learn how to throw a curveball, tie-dye, even poach eggs. But most just make you go, "Huh?"

Syracuse University professor and pop culture critic Bob Thompson spent three hours a day watching and analyzing YouTube videos for one month.

"YouTube is kind of like a garage sale, or an antique dealership. There may be a couple of real treasures amidst those heaps of absolute garbage. What YouTube has to do is kind of sift that stuff out," said Thompson. And like a great piece of gossip, the best video gems get e-mailed around.

Some video gems have created celebrities. There's even a word for them: weblebrities. And for the first time this summer, they had their own awards show: the webby film & video awards. It's the Internet equivalent of the Oscars.

That was Jessica Rose's acceptance speech after winning an award for best actress. Her wildly popular series, lonelygirl, has millions of hits on YouTube and has turned her into a mainstream star.

The co-creators of the breakout comedy series Ask a Ninja also picked up an award for best actor. They told use that the key to their show's popularity was "Surprise, heart and trying to be faster and funnier than 13-year-old brains."

So how do some videos break out of the pack and become hits? The odds are astronomical. The equivalent of six hours of video are uploaded onto YouTube every minute.

I asked Thompson whether there's a secret recipe for success on YouTube. "The first rule of YouTube dynamics," he said, "is you've got to keep it short. Seven minutes is YouTube's 'War and Peace'! If it can't be done in two or three minutes, you very quickly drop off in your likelihood of getting e-mailed to other people."

In fact, some YouTube hits last only five seconds like "Drama prairie dog." It shows an animal staring into the camera accompanied by the theme music from the movie "Star Wars." It has more than 4 million clicks on YouTube.