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At Vidcon, buzz expands beyond YouTube

Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY 12:59 p.m. EDT July 22, 2015

LOS ANGELES — Jason Ahmad will be at Vidcon this week.

And what’s Vidcon, you ask?

“It’s Beatlemania with Selfie Sticks,” says Ahmad, the co-founder of Epoxy.tv, a firm that works with YouTube performers to realize better social media returns.

At it’s core, Vidcon, which kicks off Wednesday evening with a reception and concert, puts young YouTube stars together with 21,000 fans, who come to Anaheim, Calif., to get autographs, and naturally, selfies, with their favorites.

Vidcon is a “conference that celebrates online media,” says Hank Green, who formed Vidcon 8 years ago with novelist brother John (The Fault in the Stars.) Together, the Greens are known as “The VlogBrothers,” who have achieived more than 1 billion views on YouTube.

The biggest crowds will be on the weekend for the autograph sessions, but Thursday and Friday are devoted to sessions about the business of YouTubing, with such topics as “How to grow your audience,” and how to make “YouTube your paying job.”

Industry leaders speaking include YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki; execs from CBS, PBS, BuzzFeed and Discovery; Yahoo global anchor Katie Couric and tons of YouTube stars, from iJustine, Joe Penna and Rhett & Link to Vine stars King Bach and Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor.

Vidcon has grown considerably from 1,400 the first year; in 2014 some 18,000 attended.

A lot of the chat at Vidcon will be about expanding beyond YouTube to other platforms. Vessel, a new YouTube competitor which offers creators a bigger cut of ad revenues, in exchange for debuting their work first on the service, will be there, as will Facebook.

The social network recently reached out to creators with a similar pitch.

“I know no one is talking about leaving YouTube, but there’s an advantage to platform diversity,” says Green.

Multi-platform has become a buzzword in the industry, says Ahmad. “The game isn’t just to connect with people on YouTube, it’s to connect to your core audience, and that’s why multi-platform has become such an important topic.”

Vidcon runs through Saturday.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/07/22/vidcon-celebrates-online-video/30470957/

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