The 3 Little Web Entrepreneurs
February 16, 2009 Posted by Tyler CruzOnce upon a time, there were three little web entrepreneurs who each ventured out onto their own to seek income and make a living online.
They created a personal blog called in which they wrote about their daily adventures trying to make a living from the Internet. After publishing hundreds of written posts, the 3 little web entrepreneurs decided it might be nice to publish the odd video on their blog.
They each ventured out to seek a free video hosting provider.
Wanting to publish some videos on his blog, the first little web entrepreneur decided to use YouTube since it was the most well known and widely distributed. Surely nothing could go wrong with YouTube, right?
In fact, nothing did go wrong for years. Year after year, the first little web entrepreneur added more of his videos to YouTube. Every single video of his was made by him and were simple videos talking about his day-to-day work trying to make a living as a web entrepreneur.
His videos were all family-friendly and none of them contained any illegal issues such as copyright infringement. Furthermore, he had never commented on a video in his many years of using YouTube.
Then one day the little web entrepreneur tried logging onto YouTube to find himself banned. All of the videos he had uploaded over the years disappeared. The first little web entrepreneur tried contacting YouTube numerous times but never received any response.
The first little web entrepreneur was very sad.
The second little web entrepreneur, who was actually a clone as his two other selves, and due to a mysterious rip in the space time continuum somehow shared the exact same past experiences, decided to move all of his videos to another video hosting provider called Vimeo.
Due to the amount of time it takes to upload videos, as well as the fact that the majority of the videos that were on YouTube were not on his hard drive anymore, the second little web entrepreneur was only able to upload a couple dozen of his past videos to Vimeo.
Unfortunately, after only a few weeks, the second little web entrepreneur logged into Vimeo to see that he was once again, banned. Confident that it was a mistake, the second little web entrepreneur contacted Vimeo to try to sort things out:
The Second Little Entrepreneur: Hello. I have a question if possible…
The Big Bad Vimeo: Ok.
The Second Little Entrepreneur: I added a new video last night, which uploaded successfully. However when I try to play it now I see a "This video no longer exists" message. Is there any particular reason for this, or should I try to upload it again?
The Big Bad Vimeo: Do you have the link?
The Second Little Entrepreneur: Affiliate Marketing Without Spending a Penny
The Big Bad Vimeo: We don’t allow this affiliate marketing stuff.
The Second Little Entrepreneur: Sorry, the FedEx guy came – really? I don’t recall reading that in the TOS… So you just deleted all my videos?
The Big Bad Vimeo: Yes.
The Second Little Entrepreneur: Lovely. Why not just ban my account?
The Big Bad Vimeo: I did.
The Second Little Entrepreneur: I’m still in.
The Big Bad Vimeo: You won’t be able to do anything.
The Second Little Entrepreneur: Interesting company policy you have there. Don’t provide a TOS, then ban/delete all videos with no warning.
The Big Bad Vimeo: vimeo.com/terms
The Second Little Entrepreneur: Where does it say no affiliate marketing?
The Big Bad Vimeo: "for your immediate, private, personal and non-commercial use"
The Second Little Entrepreneur: Yes, I see that. However, I don’t charge a penny… I’m not promoting or selling a paid service or product…
The Big Bad Vimeo: (xi) upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation;
The Second Little Entrepreneur: I’m just giving tutorials on how to use various services. Everything on my site is free. I give tutorials and reviews of various products and services.
The Second Little Entrepreneur: I’m not upselling anything, I am not soliciting anything.
The Big Bad Vimeo: You’ll have to use another video service.
The Second Little Entrepreneur: Okay 🙂 Good luck.
The second little web entrepreneur was very sad.
The third little web entrepreneur, another clone and again sharing the same past experiences of the first two, searched for yet another video hosting site and decided to use Viddler.
He once again took all of the saved videos he had on his computer and uploaded them to Viddler, hoping that he wouldn’t one day try to log in only to see himself banned.
The quality of Viddler was great and it had a number of cool features such as video player customization, the ability to add a custom logo to your videos, and letting others add timed comments to your videos.
Best of all, Viddler has had no problems with the 3 little web entrepreneurs and has let them frolic along joyfully.
Needless to say, the 3 little web entrepreneurs lived happily ever after.
(If you liked this story, please take 20 seconds to Digg it by clicking here, thanks!)
lol, nice way to explain your frustration.. I understand how you feel..
I agree viddler offers great services.. And yeh, I like those pics. 😀 who is your designer man ?
Sergio from SOSFactory.com – but I just took my mascot and took some images from the web to make those images above…
Whats ur viddler profile now tyler
Great comic, liked it a lot, I hope you can make more of these in the coming posts.
Those are some of the creepiest illustrations out there.
This post is really cool, so artistic. Even a kid would like to read it because of the comics you used.
Dugg…
Very cool post. One that is not usually seen. Greg Ellison
Great story , I cried a little.
I had a few tears as well. Who knew the people at Vimeo were so mean?
Ha Ha Ha!!!Those pics are so funny.Your so lucky you know how to do this.Could you teach me how to do that.Remember my e-mail.Se-ya.
Vimeo is stupid. By their logic, just about anything can be considered banned material. Oh well, their loss.
That was pretty awesome. I do like how you took your mascot and made a good cartoon. Pretty impressive my friend.
Why did YouTube delete your videos, do they have a similar non-commercial use policy?
Who knows – they never replied to me… 🙁
Youtube has tons of affiliate marketing related material. So either all of them going down or it’s something else.
What a load of sht… I hate this holier than though bs. I like the cartoon great pictures though. I’d be mad too.
The idea of the post is really cute.The fairy-tale format,the fairy-tale characters,the fairy-tale business experience.
Wow..Interesting Design..Just Digged it.
oh my gosh! I love the graphics of you!!!! Just great.
Tyler,
I read your story, I can’t believe they just up and deleted everything without telling you, even on vimeo.
Well I digged the story, good luck.
Hey Tyler, this was really well done!
Is there anything in youtube’s TOS that says you can’t do affiliate stuff? I don’t believe there is.
It must have been some “anti-tyler” person that got your accounts banned. Thats what I am suspecting anyways, because there are countless of far worse things on youtube and Vimeo.
If I were you though… I would try to give it a second chance at youtube, as it is the #1 video service on the internet, and it couldn’t hurt to try it again. If somehow you are banned again… then I would give up. The first ban has to have of been a mistake.
These three little entrepueners had no luck! Marketers should take full advantage of the online video industry in particular to reach out to prospective new and young internet consumers. This type of viral marketing campaigns may eventually take over traditional methods of captivating audiences. The online video industry is proving to be one of the fastest emerging markets and a dominant player in the entertainment industry as a whole.
Cute post, definitely grabs your attention! Hope the little webbies don’t get banned from Viddler though.
I would be so mad if that happened to me. I hate when my videos just get deleted off of youtube. Good thing I store all of mine in an external hard drive just in case. Good luck with viddler.
Lol, I have to give you kudos for your creativity in this post Tyler. Nice way to communicate your frustration!
Great Post. I love it
very good post. I love the images, it really helps liven up the post 🙂
So did you loose a ton of content during the moves? If so, that’s sad to hear! Great graphics BTW!
So did you lose a ton of content during the moves? If so, that’s sad to hear! Great graphics BTW!
Loved the post, gave you a digg and stumble. Very creative way to tell your story. Sorry you had to go through all that video trouble just to give us such an entertaining post though.
HAHA! Great story! I definitely will DIGG it for ya, buddy 🙂
BTW, who did this for you? SOSFactory or LogoSamurai?
-Mike
ahaa.. A great way to express your frustration and make a blog post.. =)
Viddler now requires a business account at $100/month minimum to post “commercial” content
Mama bear, papa bear, blah, blah, blah. How cute! Looking for ways to add my videos of commercial business, without to have to pay for hosting.
Possible, I guess not…
But if you do know, please post.