Gadgetory

what's up everyone John retina from technobuffalo here this is a video that's been about three to four years in the making when I've been thinking about for many many years but in all candor I've been too afraid to do this isn't a video for folks that want to see things be unboxed or see phones and tablets be reviewed this is a video for folks been watching us for years new fans or anybody's thinking about starting a business and wants to know what it takes give a very candid look at the company as a whole I'm going to share traffic stats actual numbers and as far as I know no other side has ever done that and walk you through what we've done right and certainly what we've done wrong as well I took a nice introspective look at where we've gone and where I want us to go shows you that are interested and want to know what TechnoBuffalo is all about sticker so this video I'm going to try and pull back the veil and there's always a veil between audience and business or between business and customer this is always the way things have gone I'm going to take all that away i'm going to show you actual traffic numbers i'm going to show you stats and i'm gonna share you know where we succeeded in where we failed suppose you'd like begin the TechnoBuffalo here's a really quick condensed brief history I have always loved technology i suspend my days just walking around best buy when I was stressed to try and relax and just play with two tech that was there start making YouTube videos just as a hobby back in around 2007-2008 when YouTube was just getting started and sort of by virtue of YouTube just getting started there were that many people doing tech videos my video started to get a lot of attention not because I was better than your bills out there because it really wasn't many people really weren't many other people out there and it grew and a grew very quickly much like you i used to read all the text that's out there i emailed and gadget i emailed gizmodo i emailed cnet saying hey I think videos could have a big role in sites in the future no one's embracing it let me be your guy and nobody got back to me so I figured I would try and start it myself I went to business pitches I tried to pitch for investment money I got laughed at I ended up going back to business school at night to get my MBA from years of california-irvine to learn how to run a business that's sort of the real quick condensed version of how TechnoBuffalo got started one of the big questions I get all the time and people don't mean it to be offensive but oftentimes they come across that way let's how those technobuffalo make money when I stop looking at as an offensive question looked at it as a question that people are generally curious about folks it might want to start their own business in the future I thought it was sort of fair to answer that and entering use for the very first time before to answer that though let me tell you how TechnoBuffalo is different from other YouTube channels that you might see out there so we make our money in two separate ways so we've got the youtube channel and we've got the TechnoBuffalo com website the reasons we've had quick growth which I'll talk to you about YouTube is still a second largest search engine in the world people are searching for videos on YouTube naturally we'll sort of come to TechnoBuffalo from there so we've got two separate avenues of how the company is going to make money so on the website side which I'm going to talk a lot about this we have an ad network that ad network serves ads that you see on the sidebar on the mobile side whether it's your tablet or phone oftentimes both sponsors will do some sort of sponsored tweets and stuff on social media side primarily it's advertising based on the tech side on the video side also advertising but a whole different organization that does that the videos that you see that sales video is brought to you by are primarily that revenue comes and certainly we share in the google adsense revenue from the videos as well typically those CPMs tend to be in the two to three dollar range oh that's really fluctuates as the years tend to go so since we launched in 2009 we have had absolutely incredible growth just for perspective our very first month in existence September 2009 we did just under forty two thousand page views and 6587 uniques and what a unique first page view means that unique is an actual person the pages how many pages were viewed so one person can obviously view many pages and every year since we've had over 150 percent growth every single year and as the side grows gain that percentage up over 100 gets harder and harder this past October we set a record for traffic with just over twelve point eight page views and the following month in November we set another record with over 3.1 million uniques and we're settling in around an average of around 10 to 11 million pageviews and about 2.8 to 3 million uniques but don't take my word for it you can see our growth chart you can see our actual numbers i'm going to show you what the numbers are actually from google annex themselves so you know that nothing is being fudged the trust but verify kind of school so how have we done this how has the growth served come that big so first we brought on really great people now one of the things I'm most proud of with the company is the people that we have here I know teacher once told me always hire people that can replace you and I've sort of lived by that mantra we've got an incredibly talented group of people I'm succeeded because of them and a lot of times in spite of me we formed a logic partnerships and a lot of syndication deals have been really helpful to help get new eyes to the site we started in 2009 we've got a very large market share now but the mind share something you've always been trying to grow don't always hear of TechnoBuffalo so we're really working hard to change that the few other stats from january 2014 until right now is being filmed on 11th of december 2014 we've done it 110 million pageviews compare that to just shy of 75 million page views from last year 12.6 million uniques last year compared to 20 point six million this year we've had a 206 percent increase on organic search two hundred ninety percent increase in social traffic all of this when you combine text and video makes us one of the largest independent consumer electronic portals in the world which is incredible we're competing against sites that have huge budgets that are owned by huge media companies that are owned by CBS owned by AOL on x box and we're just us trying to swim oftentimes swim upstream on the video side we're gaining about 500 subscribers per day we now have over eight hundred and seventy thousand as well as over a quarter of a billion video views with around 306 million our social network influence continues to grow on Facebook's become a huge traffic driver for us aside from traffic growth and growth on the video side us has been a really important year protecting Buffalo the company we were finally able to increased responsibilities and roles allowed us to bring the majority of our staff on full-time something that I've been really presently I've been working towards for the better part of two years move them to New office built the studio I had some nerf wars and just try to have fun while we're here but not everything we did was right we made some mistakes and we're really trying to learn from them and I know that our ads particularly on the mobile site have gotten ridiculously out of hand it's a personal embarrassment to me and what I'm really trying to rectify as quickly as possible as some perspective our current contract with what was a new ad network last year expires December 31st come January first we're moving back to new provider that we used in the past and I've insisted on complete control over what units are going to show I know advertising is integral part in keeping our lights on but I also know that I've let our readers down on that front our mobile site has become virtually unusable ads pop up articles don't scroll and it's an embarrassment to me that's when I am aware of and when I promising you I'm going to fix I appreciate everybody is reached out to me whether it's been on Twitter or email to let me know and of those are coming from a place with just wanting us to be better and that's a huge area where we need to improve some days we publish 40 or more articles a day we have a really strict protocol for how articles go up including a stringent reviewing process sometimes though mistakes happen words getting this used spectrum correct or the grammars a little bit off all I can tell you we always strive to be for perfect we aren't always and we're working really hard to eliminate these so every article you see embodies the vision technobuffalo vision is very simple to provide our readers with the best consumer electronics news that's out there we're updating our handbook or getting our protocols to make sure that every article that gets up has been seen through several sets of eyes to help bring you the most up-to-date and accurate information that we can I also know that many of our videos have ads in them usually four per week these a lot of like ads on the site are necessary part to our revenue ideally I like to create way more video content so the ones that ads are the exception and not the rule but this is kind of another side effect of why tech but feels different we're a business and we're business that I run we brought market on to help create more video content as we move to next year we look to bring on more but for me if you do content I produce becomes were difficult when I'm negotiating contracts when I'm trying to take care of taxes I'm kinda run payroll and such things that you know normal business owners have to do I love being in front of the camera I love talking about consumer electronics I'm talking about tech news I've been making sure of an effort the past few years my technobuffalo less about me how people think of technobuffalo they don't think of me they think of company think of article they read maybe a video from a bevy of hosts that's been difficult it's been hard for me to sort of pull back a little bit I want to do more video I'm hopeful that i may be able to do that and in the coming years i sort of give and responsibilities to others on the staff and I'm hoping that you can sort of get my face out there more but also other people who deserve a chance to be on camera deserve to have an audience that they can speak to give them that opportunity so I know a lot of people are going to ask why we're doing this why share traffic stats why give you actual information why break down where revenue comes from and the such and why admit were made mistakes and the honest answer is if you're still watching this video I feel like you all deserve to know this you put food on my table you put food on everybody's table behind me everybody that's not behind me you know every way I can think of you our clients and if we're not serving you the best and we're not doing our job you know I'm sure there's a ton of things I'm leaving out I've gone too much more detail the advertising side on something you guys want to know I will go into more detail about that I will pull back every veil i can give you guys a full picture of how things work but i wanted to sort of condense everything give you guys an overall sense of how talking about flow works where we've succeeded we've had a lot of successes but also where we failed i think taking a look at yourself and your business whatever you might be doing and sort of seeing where you're at and evaluating where you've made mistakes as important as we move to 2015 we look to make resolutions aren't just personal which also for the business so it's everybody who's watching now who's been watching for years everybody behind me everybody works on technobuffalo thank you thank you for your support thank you for helping us get better I know we are far from perfect but I give you my work we are working to get there and every year I will make a state of the site video-sharing where we succeeded and where we failed and again I think you guys want to see me go to more detail about it would be my pleasure and honor to do that thank you guys for watching I hope you enjoyed i'm jon rettinger from technobuffalo and i'll talk to you guys in the next video thank you guys for watching hope you enjoyed we love making tech videos here if you like watching them as much as we love making them and just enjoy playing with the latest consumer electronics gear check us out hit the big subscribe button we got new videos coming out almost every single day we also have a channel on twitch where we play games sometimes not so well at twitch TV / technobuffalo