Mike Devinsky

AI for the rest of us.

[Nate Curtiss @natecurtiss_yt]

The 10 rules of editing a viral YouTube video:

1. Match the edit to who's watching. Young audiences want more cuts. Older audiences lose track when the cuts pile up.

2. Put your best editing in the first 30 seconds. Front load the video. Then spread that effort across your average watch time. Your hook decides whether anyone sees the rest.

3. Do not let retention collapse after the intro. If the pace drops the second the hook ends, people leave. Hold the same pace from the first second to the last.

4. Save big transitions for big moments. A huge whoosh on a small moment distracts people and they click off. Everywhere else, jump cuts.

5. Sound design is the difference between decent and great. Add a sound when something happens on screen. Never use the same effect twice in a row. Keep them ambient and minimalist

6. Music follows the video. Keep it 10 to 25 decibels under the voiceover. Change the track when the section, the moment, or the place changes.

7. Slow down a little. Constant stimulation pushes viewers away. Add a short pause between sections to keep people watching.

8. Always include a roadmap in your intro, and reference it at the start of each section. You need a graphic that outlines the flow/parts of your video to give viewers a sense of progression.

[Bill Gurley @bgurley]

Please stop referring to your own models in the third person when talking about model bad behavior. Humans write the software; humans built the prompts; and they work for your company.

“Our” model is doing illegal things. “Our” model is risky. “We” now have liability.

[Mike Devinsky @MikeDevinsky]

@natecurtiss_yt I have a juicy one on Spotify coming out in 2 weeks!

[Mike Devinsky @MikeDevinsky]

@chrisfirst @VidCon Wow. Looks like it got cleared out FAST, here's what it looked like before, wraps around lol!

[Jared Isaacman @rookisaacman]

I bought Shift4 stock, the company I started 27 years ago, that serves predominantly hotels, restaurants, and stadiums, because it was trading at a multi-year low and permissible under my ethics agreement. I sold all SpaceX stock, any indirect equity exposure to it, and any other aerospace-related companies 18 months ago when I was first nominated for the job. A billion-dollar sacrifice I was happy to make to serve my country. I suspect I will be worth much less coming out of public service than going into it-- and that is completely fine!

[Jay Alto @theJayAlto]

go listen to your favourite podcaster’s first episode, read your favourite writer’s first essay, watch your favourite youtuber’s first video. you’ll soon realise everybody sucks at the start.

[Mike Devinsky @MikeDevinsky]

@natecurtiss_yt Talk to you soon!

[Nate Curtiss @natecurtiss_yt]

YouTube is rolling out a crazy new update this year.

YouTube is rolling out Shows, and it changes how your content sits on your channel.

Here is what it does and why the channels that ignore it lose a year of watch timeL

A playlist groups a batch of videos together with no structure. A viewer who wanted to follow your series in order had to search through the list themselves. YouTube admits this was cumbersome.

Shows fix it. You convert a playlist into a show, your videos become numbered episodes inside seasons, and YouTube builds a full show page with the artwork you upload. Then it recommends that show across the app.

This was built for the TV, not your phone.
TV is the fastest growing place people watch YouTube, and the old channel layout never matched how people watch on a TV.

For many people, especially young viewers, YouTube already is TV. The connected TV experience never reflected that. Revenue from TV viewing jumped 30 percent in one year. Shows copy the layout people already know from Netflix and Prime. Finish one episode and the next plays automatically.

The Continue watching row holds their place. That is how one viewer becomes a full season of watch time instead of a single view.

YouTube copied this from the streaming services on its own platform.

The show pages you are about to get are the same ones YouTube built for Paramount+ and Showtime.

YouTube built these show pages for PrimeTime Channels, its paid streaming bundle inside the app.

Their product lead said they realized they should bring the same product to channels, because so many channels already make high quality shows. So you get the same page a paid streaming service gets, for free, on your own channel.

YouTube is not making the shows. You are.
YouTube shut down its own studio and handed the entire opportunity to channels.

YouTube Originals launched in 2015, greenlit Cobra Kai in 2018, lost the show to Netflix in 2020, and shut down in 2022. YouTube now says it has no plans to restart it.

Their words: their expertise is helping others create and distribute, not making the media themselves. That is the whole point. YouTube will not compete with you for the slot. It will promote you into it. The placement is open to channels now.

Set this up now or hand the placement to someone else
The channels that build shows this year get the recommended placement. The rest stay a list of separate videos nobody finishes.

Pick serial when people watch your story in order. Pick non-serial when people drop into a topic anywhere.

Upload real artwork, the texted poster, the backdrop, and the title treatment, because YouTube puts that art on browse pages across the app. Number your seasons.

Design thumbnails that read on a 55 inch screen, not just a phone. Do this before your competitors do, because the early shows get the recommendations.

[Paddy Galloway @PaddyG96]

What do these four viral YouTube videos have in common?

[Mike Devinsky @MikeDevinsky]

@jthomas__ @grok summarize this thread with the top 10 words in order

[Roberto Nickson @rpnickson]

I posted this paid partnership last night on IG and this morning it’s at 1M views and 100K+ likes:

Life with Claude

[Mike Devinsky @MikeDevinsky]

@PaddyG96 I retract my previous tweet. Just used AI to brainstorm and 20/day high quality ideas was an easy number to hit.

[Mike Devinsky @MikeDevinsky]

@PaddyG96 Do you think 100+ ideas is too many and we put less effort in coming up with good ideas if we're trying to do it that much at scale? Like maybe 50/week is better because we can spend more time researching outliers and coming up with good ideas? Or do u find 100 is the right #?

[Paddy Galloway @PaddyG96]

Today I turn 29.

For over 50% of my life, I’ve been obsessing over YouTube strategy.

Billions of views, 10s of millions in revenue, 100s of channels later…

Here are 29 lessons for YouTubers:

[Zed @creativesbyzed]

Your FACE is your most underused thumbnail asset

Stop picking frames where you look neutral.

Go through your footage and find the most extreme expression.

Shock. Confusion. Disbelief. Laughter.

They feel what you feel before they even click.

[Zed @creativesbyzed]

inspiration is everywhere around you

just try making something

[Paddy Galloway @PaddyG96]

First of all, here’s the actual video.

Almost 100x the average views when we first took over the channel.

What made it such an outlier?

[Mario Joos @MarioJoos]

When you’re creating an intro on YouTube, you want to make sure that the viewer gets what THEY want out of an intro. Here are the 4 most important elements of an intro:

1. Tone

As much as I’d like to start with some of the other points, the most important part of an intro is the type of tone it sets for the entire video. Tone is the overall style, the overall way in which we deliver our content. Is the video highly edited? Is the goal exciting enough for the viewer? Is it scripted or unscripted, and is that something the viewer wants?

Tone tells the viewer if this video is intended for them or not. Ever watch a Minecraft video that feels too “childish” but still got millions of views? It’s because you weren’t the intended audience in the first place.

So, as viewers, we tend to look for any information about the tone of the video.

But how do you set the tone?

I’d break it down into two big focus points:

How to set the tone for the way the content will be delivered.

How to set the tone for what content will be delivered.

The first one is easy. Just edit your intro in a manner that matches the overall feel of the video. Then the viewer can use this to understand if the video is for them or not.

The second one is harder, but still pretty straightforward. What better way to set the tone for the content than teaser clips?

2. Confirmation

Now, we’re getting into the technical parts of an intro.

When a viewer clicks on a video, they come in with a certain level of confidence that they’ll be interested in it because they clicked on the title. However, that confidence may not stay.

That click didn’t just get them into the video. In a way, it took them from selection to decision.

What do I mean?

Well, when they were browsing for their next video to watch, they were trying to choose a video that matched their interests. However, once they click on the video, they’re no longer trying to choose it. Instead, they’re asking themselves: Is this video relevant to me, and will I stay engaged?
The best way to establish this relevance is by confirming the initial expectation they had before clicking.

And what better way to do this than to simply restate the title?

3. Essential Context Only

One of the biggest mistakes creators make in their intros is overloading the viewer with too much information about the video. Your job isn’t to give away the entire video. Your job is to give away just enough information for the viewer to understand the first segment.

You see, viewers don’t like being overfed information. It’s not the content they signed up for. However, it is important to make sure they don’t get confused. That’s why we typically try to keep context to a minimum.

So what context should we give?

This depends from viewer to viewer, but we notice that structural context is highly desired. Structural context is where we give the viewer some sense of how the video will flow. Maybe we talk about the structure of the segments, maybe we highlight an intended strategy, or maybe it’s a rule that instantly comes into play when the video starts.

If you’re ever wondering whether the context you’re giving is essential, ask yourself: Is there any way I can give this information later and not have the viewer become confused?

4. Goal

Wait, wait. Let me ask you a question.

Why do you think we set the goal in our intro?

Most of the time, when I ask this question, a person answers: to give the viewer something to look forward to.

That’s correct, but it doesn’t paint a complete picture.

The secondary reason, and maybe the most important reason, why people like to understand the goal of the video early is because it gives them a way to judge each scene or segment based on how much it progresses toward that goal. If the scene progresses meaningfully toward that goal, we’re good. If not, we tend to have a weaker moment.

So, where does that leave us?

If you’re writing an intro, make sure you’re not just thinking about creating an initial moment. Think about the needs of the viewer, what is actually important, and then how you can get into the content as fast as possible.