I love our fans.
They are so concerned that our work will not be seen. It’s actually very sweet the way they always suggest other platforms. They want to make sure that everyone has access to our creative video essays. So, thank you for that and we have been listening to you!
By the way, have you seen our work? You can watch all our content here: book of ours is on YouTube
We have spent many weeks, if not months, looking into other platforms. So here is our personal take on these platforms. Each content creator is going to have a different response to how they interact with the platforms, so please keep that in mind.
BitChute. BitChute has been attacked a lot lately, specifically a DDoS attack. Domain Denial of Service (DDoS) means that their servers have been attacked by bots. These bots are flooding BitChute’s server with junk requests which overwhelms their server. This makes it impossible for content creators to upload. This is often why you, as the viewer, have a very slow response when you hit play on that video you really want to watch. This attack on their server is frequent and since the National Emergency was declared, they have been particularly flooded with these bots. In our opinion, they are being attacked for promoting free speech since they are the platform that YouTube content makers go to first to find a new home, after YouTube de-platforms them. So, from a marketing perspective, they are in direct competition with YouTube, which makes them even more vulnerable. But yes, we do have a BitChute channel: book of ours is on Bitchute.
LBRY. Also known as “Library.” LBRY is a blockchain system. Their differentiation in the marketplace makes it difficult for content creators to participate unless content creators are very tech savvy. It’s confusing to set up an account. We tried doing it and even for us, who are fairly tech savvy, it was complicated. We’re not Max Igan after all. He has a host of volunteers who live to do stuff like this just for him. Not only that, your personal computer stores bits and pieces of other people’s content. This is what makes it decentralized (that’s a good thing, when you’re trying to get out of the fascist clutches of Google/YouTube). When other people’s content are stored on your computer, it takes up precious space on your own computer. For people like us, artists who are already using multiple terabytes of data to store our own work, this doesn’t benefit us. Besides, why would I want to code other people’s content on my computer? That would take time away from making my own video art and essays.
Brighteon. We see no problem with Brighteon. In fact, please subscribe to our channel: book of ours is on Brighteon. The only problem with Brighteon is FaceBook has banned Brighteon outright. If you try to share our Brighteon videos or channels on Facebook you’ll get a message that clearly states the link is not allowed to post on Facebook. Also, Brighteon only allows 50 videos unless you reach a certain level of subscribers and views, then you can increase the amount of videos they will let you upload. So, please go to our Brighteon channel and subscribe! Thanks.
Vimeo. Although Vimeo did remove a few of our videos off their platform, falsely claiming our content went against “Vimeo’s Community standards” we did find a work-around. There is an option when uploading content onto the Vimeo platform that says “Hide from Vimeo” which means it’s only available for people you share the link with on other sites but makes it invisible to Vimeo. This works for us since we occasionally use Vimeo to post our videos on our book of ours patreon
Rokfin. Rokfin is a site that uses tips and a way to share other members in order for content to be seen. It’s got a bunch of tabs for sports related content, and then one for Media. In their “Media” section there are some pretty heavy hitters, like Jimmy Dore, for example. Rokfin seems great in that we could host our videos on the platform, and then get tips from viewers if they chose to tip us. The problem is they are not very clear what their size limit is and if they have a limitation on how many videos you can upload. As artists, our videos are pretty big. Plus, Rokfin vets everyone on their platform. In order to answer any technical questions we have, they have to vet us first, to see if we, as artists are even worth talking to. To us, it feels like this site is for people who are already established, kind of like Brand New Tube. By the way, after about a week, we are still waiting to hear back from them to see if we made the cut.
D.Tube. Also known as “DTube”, it’s a lot like LBRY, running on decentralized blockchain. We were able to upload one video and one video only. After that, we were not able to upload anymore videos. Also, you have to use a private key that’s about 30 characters long and/or a master key with the same amount of characters just to log in. There are also file size and quality limitations. They only allow 480P. Our videos are about three times that size and quality. When you’re an artist, quality matters.
MeWe. We have a MeWe account, but we don’t use it (yet). Follow us there if you’d like. It feels much like Facebook and it seems they’ve even added a Creator Studio application into their platform, much like Facebook’s. If we ever get de-Faced, you can find us there: book of ours is on MeWe
BrandNewTube. Brand New Tube is for the very popular content creators, like Dr. Vernon Coleman or Dr. Pam Popper. They do have an option to upload your YouTube videos directly onto their platform, which is great! This means that you would simply take the link from your active YouTube video and link it directly onto their platform, then your video is now hosted on both YouTube and Brand New Tube, in case YouTube deletes it. For us, this process took a long time. Also, if you want to upload a video directly from your computer, it never works.
Minds. Minds is a lot like Twitter. If we ever get de-Twittered, then you can find us on book of ours is on Minds. As far as hosting our videos, we’re not sure if Minds will have the technology to do that.
Twitter. Twitter announced they were severing their partnership with Periscope.tv in 2021. We would use Periscop.tv to upload our video essays into a tweet. We’ve done this in the past and it worked well. However, with the severing of that partnership this is likely to stop until they come up with an alternative. You can find us on Twitter: julie and jp
Instagram. Instagram has an option to play all our art video essays as long as we reformat them to a specific configuration and upload them from the Cloud/iPhone. All of our short propaganda pieces are on Instagram as well as a couple of our longer video essays. book of ours is on Instagram
Gab. Gab seems like another Twitter alternative. However, unlike Twitter they have something similar to Instagram called “Gab TV”, but it’s a $7.99 per month fee to upload videos from my computer directly onto Gab. If I am ever wiped out on Twitter, and push comes to shove and I have to throw down to get my art videos seen then we will use it. You can find Julie on Gab.
Thanks for encouraging us to look into other platforms, guys. I hope this gives you a comprehensive, simple explanation as to why you might find us on some platforms, but not on others.
As you can see, we have upgraded our website. Once we have the perfect software package to get our videos up to our server, then we can host our own videos on our own site, which is always the preference. What this means is that if we do get platformed off YouTube, or any site for that matter, it doesn’t matter because we can upload our own videos onto our own site and you as the viewer, could share our videos from our website to help promote a video you like, instead of sharing one of our YouTube videos. In the meantime, though, sharing our YouTube videos is still the best way to get our content promoted.
Thank you for caring and suggesting all your good ideas!
book of ours are working artists and could really use your help. By becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/bookofours you can help support us as we continue to archive history in unique and creative ways through our video essays. You can find all of our work at http://www.youtube.com/bookofours and our back-up channel at book of ours backup on YouTube. The artists can be reached at info@book-of-ours.com