YouTube Live | Meet the Trudgians

YouTube Live

Posted by on Dec 19, 2017 in Featured | 10 comments

YouTube Live

Over the past few weeks we have been hosting “Monday Night Live” on our YouTube channel.

The series of Live broadcasts have been received well. In our 1st live video we discussed the up and coming NEC Motorhome show and generally got to grips with the Live video concept. It was a nerve racking time but I think we did okay.

Our 2nd Monday night live was more structured and we had learnt some lessons from the 1st one with reading comments and what to do when broadcasting. It did also teach us the lesson of troll management, as this episode was hit by a lot of unsavoury types for some reason. Thankfully Caravan Gossip (Iain) stepped up to the plate was on hand to help as a comment moderator thereafter.

The subsequent videos were excellent. We hosted a pub quiz, which was a blast and we started to receive a lot of love, kind comments and Super Chat donations. This is where we get the totally un-British thing of discussing money.

Our final Monday Night Live of 2017

Super Chats are a mechanism for viewers to donate a nominal amount of money to the YouTube channel providing the Live broadcast. It’s a way to say thanks, support and fund content creators. Donations can be from £2, right up to £500. The benefit of super chats is that the viewer can ask a question, send a message or well wishes and they stay on screen longer than the extremely busy live chat. So, if you have something to say: use a super chat, it will get noticed. Loosing comments and ignoring what folks are typing is a huge issue when hosting a live video, so the Super Chat mechanism is a perfect way to get comments noticed.

But the Super chat does have a negative side. Our last Monday Night Live of 2017 generated a substantial amount of donations. Viewers were donating £2, £5, £10 over and over. This is heart-warming stuff and I am truly grateful for the comments, support and general love from our subscribers, I really am. Such support is something to cherish, and we are truly blessed. However, many donators don’t realise that when they purchase a Super Chat, Google takes 30% of the donation. So, if you donate £10 to a channel, they will only see £7, while Google who are already running adverts on the live chat pocket £3 from the end user and not make this immediately clear to the person donating.

From 2018 we will not be promoting the Super Chat function on our Live videos. It is not that we are ungrateful or wanting to stop donations, it’s simply because Google take a 30% cut of the donations when we have a perfectly good mechanism for accepting donations on our website. The bottom line is : You can donate less, and we receive more, Cutting out the middle man.

“Support Our Channel” Is a new concept for us

We have just introduced a “Support our channel” product on our shop. Donations start from £2 and you can choose the size of the donation right up to £100 (I’m not for one second assuming that will ever happen) but this runs in line with donation amounts on offer from the Super Chat facility.

Providing the Support our Channel product also has other benefits, it means that our followers can donate whenever they like, not just while a Live broadcast is on. Also, its via PayPal so many people have the facility of a PayPal account. And finally, currently users of iOS devices cannot send Super Chat donations – it simply isn’t supported right now.

Finally, this is not us pushing donations. It’s not us making it “all about money”. It isn’t. We do however get asked a lot about supporting our channel and this is just a mechanism for doing that. If you choose to support us, brilliant – a huge, massive Thank you. If however you choose not to support our channel, its no big deal. We will carry on.

We have run this channel now for 3 years and, we do not expect anything from the people who watch our content. We rely on the industry to use us to promote, support and review their services and deliver an unbiased view on just that.

I hope you understand our stance, I hope you also see the reasons why we are ditching the Super Chat and I know that we are not alone in removing the facility from our Live Streams.

If you have supported us already, a huge massive thank you. It’s something that until these Live chats started we were completely not tuned into or aware that people wanted to financially reward us. So again, a huge heartfelt thank you.

10 Comments

  1. Thanks for that. Future donations will be your merchandise and strait to your site.

    Can’t have Google take in 30% off thay make plenty as it is.

    Thanks Alan Scammell

  2. Jesus, 30 % taken by Google glad I have a iPhone now that’s taking the “wee wee” will donate by other means.
    Thanks for that info Dan.

  3. It’s the right decision. I didn’t know about the 30% take by Google, but always felt a bit uneasy about Superchat. You’ll need a way to acknowledge website donations though.

  4. Very expertly handled! I think it’s great what you are doing and will keep everyone happy! I’m sure many people were unaware of Google’s charges as was I. Keep up the great work you and your family do chap! I look forward to every video.

  5. 30% is an outrage. They should make it far clearer at the point you pay. I’m not so annoyed at them taking 30% off me but taking the 30% off you guys. Donations via superchat are made with the best intentions that the hosts are getting that money and this sours the whole thing completely. Keep up the good work though and don’t let this spoil the live events. It’s something that many of us enjoy and look forward to.

    Neal.

  6. I don’t blame you Dan, will definitely donate via your new means. Love the vlogs and everything you provide. Been absolutely invaluable to myself and my husband this last 10 months

  7. Thank goodness this announcement was only about donations. I thought for a moment that you were going to stop the live events. We absolutely love them and are so glad you plan to carry on.

    We thnk you have made a great decision cutting out Google.

  8. Well said. Well done.

  9. Points well made. Totally agree. But can I make a suggestion Patreon. Now before you throw the idea out let me say that if I was contributing just £2 per month say it’s only like a third of a magazine cover price and you get support for the informative and fun videos and chats. Just a thought.

  10. Recon you’ve done right and will support through your merchandise once back on site x

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