Hi! I'm Liam Dryden. I'm a UK YouTube Partner and member of YouTube's video-blogger community, and today I'd like to talk to you a bit about the Project For Awesome aka P4A.
Originally set up in 2007 by the vlogbrothers (aka John and Hank Green) and their rapidly growing subscriber base, the plan of the Project For Awesome was to take over YouTube's charts for a day with videos raising awareness and money for a wide range of charities. The date of P4A, December 17, is set a week before Christmas to remind people that the giving part of the season doesn't have to begin and end at the point of purchase.
Last year, by creating hundreds of videos talking about charity and other altruistic projects, and spending 24 hours on a mass viewing, commenting and favouriting spree of all the P4A videos across the site, all of YouTube's Most Viewed, Commented, Favourited and Rated charts were dominated by these videos between December 17th and 18th. it was a huge success, and all the vloggers whose videos had made it into the charts found their chosen charities benefitting from the event.
Every year since then, led by John and Hank every December 17, Project For Awesome has grown and grown. This weekend, P4A enters its fourth year and YouTube's gracious involvement in our gaming of their system means that a handful of people like me have been invited to show you how we do things, in case you're interested in taking part.
There are plenty of ways you can get involved, the most obvious being make a video. If you support any kind of charity that you think needs a little more awareness, then grab your camera and just tell the world a little bit about them and what people can do to help. It doesn't have to be long, most people watching will be flying through lots of different videos throughout the day anyway, so the more concise you are, the better.
If you're a YouTube Partner, there are a wide range of editable, attention-grabbing P4A thumbnails available for download at http://projectforawesome.com. Add one of these to your video to let your audience know you're involved and they'll get to work. Videos should be going live in the morning of December 17, as this is a concentrated effort lasting 24 hours.
As well as making a video, one of the most important elements of P4A is the mass watching, liking, favouriting and commenting of all the other P4A videos you come across. Many people will be linking to others, or you can search for recent "Project for Awesome" uploads (many people will be adding P4A as a tag), but it's absolutely necessary you become a part of this. With more people using YouTube every year it becomes a lot harder to make a video reach the No. 1 spots in the charts, and we need all the help we can get to make a dent in them. So with that in mind, any additional promotion you can do on sites like Twitter, Facebook or your individual blogs will be much appreciated.
This year I'm making a video for my favourite charity, Child's Play. They specialise in providing long-term patients in children's hospitals with video games, consoles, DVDs and other forms of entertainment to keep their spirits up while on the road to recovery. On top of my video, I'm holding a number of eBay auctions where I'm selling some gaming-themed t-shirts that I've worn in previous videos, and all the proceeds of those will be going towards the charity.
So I hope if you're interested, you can give my video a watch… and a comment… and maybe favourite it. Hey, it's for charity!
I'm really excited about P4A 2011; I think this is going to be the biggest year yet, and I hope you agree.
Looking forward to seeing you amongst the madness this weekend.
Don't Forget To Be Awesome!
Liam Dryden, Video Blogger/Comedian, recently watched: "Alex Day - Forever Yours"
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