When I picked this one up I could not help but think, "Why? Why would anyone want to be really good at Youtube?" This book gives any marketer more than enough answers.

The authors are not only adepts at YouTube, they have a good background in film and film studies. This combination has allowed the creation of a very pragmatic, hands on guide that really does lead you through how to achieve the goal in the title. Very readable and moves right along, so it is not a heavy tome by any measure.

On another level the book provides some insight on the user generated content space and just how compelling it is. The linked examples in the book are very useful in a study of this space. You see how Youtube has been able to generate such a strong and growing user base. No wonder that the analysts say that Google is losing millions on just the hosting alone for YouTube. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and for how long. Any marketer will gain a lot from this book.

I knew I had a lot to learn, but I never dreamed I had THIS much to learn! And it's all in one book with lots of detail and simple language. You can even skip to whatever topic you want without feeling lost because you didn't read the previous chapter. If I had to choose one word to describe this guide, that word would be "awesome."

If you're into YouTube from the perspective of creating videos for public consumption, this is the one book you really should have available to you... YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts by Alan Lastufka and Michael W. Dean. It goes into everything you need to know on how to create compelling stories, quality video, and YouTube marketing. On top of that, it's entertaining to read.

Contents: What Is This YouTube of Which You Speak?; Storytelling and Directing; 99-Cent Film School - Shooting, Editing, and Rendering; Creating Your Very Own Channel; Broadcasting Yourself - User-Generated Content; Rebroadcasting - Commercial Content; Building Your Audience; The Community - Where Do You Fit In?; Hacking the System - How to Cheat (and Why You Shouldn't); Reaching the World; Money, Money, Money!; Beyond the 'Tube; Becoming a Success Story; Closing Arguments; Interviews with Other YouTube Rock Stars; Index

Unlike most books that cover specific online sites like Facebook or Google, this goes far beyond just the nuts and bolts mechanics of how to work with the site. Yes, there's the prerequisite information on how to upload videos, how to link to your videos, how to create channels, etc. But where this book excels is in teaching you what happens *before* you even fire up your browser. If you're interested in nothing more than posting that funny pet video you happened to capture last Christmas, then you probably don't care about most of the "before" stuff. But there are people who consistently and professionally produce video content and use YouTube as their distribution channel. This is the audience to which Lastufka and Dean speak. Videos are stories, and you will learn what makes up a good story (and more importantly, how to tell that story in 10 minutes). Once you have your story, you have to film and edit it in such a way that the production quality doesn't detract from your overall message. That's covered here as well. And then after you get two or three videos online and someone other than your mother is viewing them, you may need to think about how you market yourself in this venue. Lastufka and Dean make sure you have all the information you need to make solid choices up front before you accidentally get popular and end up stuck with some brand you never intended to portray.

Bottom line, this is an excellent book. The material is solid and comprehensive, and they back up everything they say with actual URL examples from YouTube. Again, if you are going to post on a semi-regular basis on YouTube, this is a must-read.

This is the real deal from people who know what they are talking about. Michael Dean is an expert at breaking down the barriers between independent production and mass distribution. His $30 School series are the handbooks for no-budget visionaries. Now with YouTube: An Insider's Guide, Michael and Alan have provided a transparent model to success with online video.

If you want to be in the Top 10, this is a must-read.

This is a thorough introduction to creating videos for YouTube, aimed at the absolute beginner. It is especially strong on explaining how to tell a story and on how to behave yourself as part of the YouTube community. The emphasis is on making art, not on making money.

It is not a techie book. There's a long chapter called "99-Cent Film School" that covers the mechanics of creating a video, but it's very basic and deals mostly with the selection of equipment, with some discussion of editing. The book is unusual in that it is not Macintosh-centric: the authors use Windows and claim there's no need to consider Macintosh because Windows is cheaper and has more software.

The authors summarize their position on p. 248 as "Don't watch the media, be the media." This is a good sound bite and gives the flavor of the book, although it is not really accurate since they encourage watching and commenting on the videos of other YouTubers. (Besides, if no one watched the media, would there be any media left?) The authors detest traditional media, especially television, and they detest much of the new media too. This doesn't have much impact on the book, except to cause occasional outbursts of gratuitous nastiness. For example, on p. 244 we read, "Social networking provides websites to people who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a computer." Although there's some truth in this, it is unnecessary to state it here. The isolation from other media also gives the impression that YouTube is its own universe, with no connection to anything else.

The nastiness comes out in concentrated form in the Preface, which attempts to explain "Why You Should Buy This Book" by trashing the competition. Be sure to skip this section of the book! It's not representative of the rest and reading it will turn you off from an otherwise-good book.

There are a number of rough spots that could have been improved by better copy-editing. The book is somewhat rambling. Although it does explain all the YouTube and computer jargon, it may use a term many times before defining it. For example, the term "partner" is used throughout the book but is not explained until Chapter 11. The index is often no help; "partner" is not in the index as such (you have to look under YouTube Partners), and acronyms such as RSS and NLE are not indexed at all.

YouTube URLs are cryptic pseudo-random character strings, and a Very Good Feature of the book is that the authors have placed every URL as a hyperlink on one page on their web site, so you just have to click it. This is not quite as good as feature as it could be, because the cryptic URLs on that page are not annotated other than with a cross-reference number such as "URL 9.3"; if each had a short description or title the page would be easier to navigate and would also be great for browsing.