As a middle-school-age skateboarder growing up in the late ’90s, I was conditioned to hate rollerbladers. According to doctrine laid down by skateboarding magazines, this relatively new sport looked goofy, didn’t involve as much risk and, hence, was totally “gay.” (It usually went unmentioned that rollerblading also posed an economic threat to the skateboard industry.)
When a rollerblader moved into my apartment complex, however, I learned the joys of “aggressive” inline skating, which involves doing tricks and stunts. Thinking back, some of my fondest memories of those otherwise dreadful adolescent years involve me slapping on a pair of scratched-up blades, rigging a metal rail against a shopping cart and whiling away the hours doing soul grinds—one of the more basic tricks—over and over again. [...]
We’d like to publicly acknowledge Franky Morales‘s contributions for the past few years and announce that as of today he will no longer be a part of Remz.
We didn’t anticipate parting ways and there has been a common project in the works for the past few months, a second Franky OS skate, which we both decided to still release soon.
Doing what you love, be it skating at pro level or running a skate company, can also have a tough business side to it and some decisions can be hard to make.
Kato and Franky have come to this mutually and believe it will ultimately create a better situation for everyone involved.
We look forward to the future and new team opportunities with excitement and anticipation, and wish Franky well wherever his path may lead.
TL;DR at the end of the post. /!\ Update: Added the example of Rob Scallon, blader & musician.
People in the Rollerblading scene sure love Vimeo.
Why? For a single reason, (unlike Youtube) Vimeo allows the use of copyrighted songs without restriction. You can use your favorite music in your latest edits and no Major Music Company will be able to do anything.
This may change in the future, if anything close to the SOPA or PIPA get accepted. Websites like Vimeo would just close.
Bladers massively migrated from Youtube to Vimeo after October 2007 when Vimeo was the first to get Hi Definition Support ; Youtube was really late on this, you had to wait until December 2008 (14 months later) to get access to hi quality videos.
In 2012, HD is supported on every streaming platforms, staying on Vimeo for bladers might be a mistake. Why?
You may remember the Youtube clip Charlie bit my finger, a viral clip of a child biting his brother. The family who uploaded the video earned more than £100,000 (around 155 680 US $), the video was viewed 392 million times at the time of the article.
Take the ATL Waterpark Section from Black Market. This video was viewed more than 2,695,000 times in 17 months. Basic mathematics tell me that the guy who uploaded this cashed about 1000$ (or he didn’t check his youtube messages & must be really mad now).
Black Market, ATL Waterpark Section:
2,695,000+ Views in 17 months.
Of course most blading videos won’t reach 2 millions views. This one went viral but skaters surely can earn some royalties with their work that way (most videos on Youtube get monetized once your reached the 10k views cap).
On Vimeo even the most popular blading videos won’t reach 100k views. The most viewed video of the WRS Uploaded Contest (the Nils Jansons Section) only reached 75k views.
I’m surprised that the owners of those videos don’t claim their work (like VEVO does with his musicvideos), rehost better quality versions on their account and earn 3-4k dollars per year. If you can prove Youtube that these videos are yours, they will just take the mirrors down.
Some brands choosed to stay on Youtube and this is good, they are getting some income from their work:
On Vimeo, you get less views because the only one watching your videos are actually bladers. There are no viral effect on Vimeo, the only way for your video to get exposure on Vimeo is the Staff Pick Section which feature video on their index. In more than 4 years, Vimeo never featured a single blading video although almost all the community post their work on their website.
I’m hearing a huge troll screaming in the background “Yes, it’s cool, that way. If only bladers watch our videos, this is perfect, we want to stay underground”. Let me post something i saw last week that somehow made me really sad.
Dominic Sagona & Adam Johnson have a lot of amazing videos. Why don’t they monetize their past and future work on Youtube?
If you don’t have a good job on the side and a good healthcare, skating just looks like russian roulette. You can have fun but it can also end really quickly. People in the USA also have one of the worst healthcare system worldwide, just check Sicko by Michael Moore, it explains it really well).
Take the gaming “community”, a lot of broadcasters live from their work on Youtube: The Yoggcast, The Cynical Brit. What those guys do isn’t exceptional, they sure do it well and on a regular basis but what they’re only giving their first impressions on games they are playing.
Take Dominic Sagona, that guy is amazing. He has a unique skating skill and on the side creates music and is also DJing.
Just take your camera! Film your life, explain what you’re going through. Put on video your creative process while working on a new song ; test new music softwares, give your first impressions on it, bring the camera on your DJ set, show people how it’s done. Most people live a life extremely boring, just give us the opportunity to have a glimpse of what your exciting life looks like…
Make money on Youtube! Even if your videos are not that popular, beer’s money as Damien Wilson likes to call it, is worth it. Don’t use musics owned by Majors though, or half of the planet won’t be able to watch your videos (hello Germany!)
If you’re producing your own music (like Julian Bah, Franky Morales, …), just use your work. Else why not promoting indy bands? There are tons of musicians no one ever heard in your local area ; check Soundcloud too, i’m sure they are lots of people who would be glad to let you use their work if you just credit them somewhere.
About Youtube, Google, Adsense & VEVO
Youtube is the property of Google, Google also own Adsense, the most successful Online advertising program. You get paid via Adsense when you generate money via Youtube.
A lot of channels on Youtube are labelled artistVEVO. VEVO is a joint venture among Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and EMI. They control together the musicvideos they own and generate money via Youtube.
I’ve been a youtube partner for a while now and have been fortunate enough to have youtube provide a regular income for me as a musician in the past year.
I’m not making enough money from it to quite my job of course, but with this and so many other benefits on youtube. Why are all rollerbladers on vimeo? (link to the comment).
TL;DR (Too long, didn’t read).
You can earn money from your videos on Youtube. WTF are you doing on Vimeo?
A full-scale, 753.5-square foot prototype for a house Francois Perrin is currently designing in Malibu, CA for Pierre-Andre Senizergues (Etnies founder).
The prototype, fully equipped with sofa, bed, furniture from the Skate Study House collection and even kitchen appliances, was just recently part of the exhibition Public Domaine / Skating Culture at la Gaite Lyrique, a new museum in Paris.
The complete residence, where everything in the house is skateable, will measure 2,200-square feet and will to be located in a site overlooking the Pacific at the top of Malibu.
The concept of the house is a ribbon that creates a continuous surface to be skated from the Outside to the Inside. The house is divided into three separate spaces. The first one includes the living room, dining area and kitchen, the second one includes a bedroom and bathroom and the third one a skating practice area.
Each space is skateable as the ground becomes the wall then the ceiling in a continuous surface forming a tube of a 10ft diameter. The furniture is also skateable [...]
Photo: Kevin Yee – x-grind (San Francisco) by Matt Rice.
Skaters have a unique aesthetic perspective on their own activity and on public space — a perspective we shouldn’t ignore.
Skaters are either pests or eXtreme dare devils (or eXtreme dare devil pests). Either they’re scuffing up a beautiful public planter box or handrail, or they’re engaged in some death-defying, oooh-aaahhh-inspiring spectacle on ESPN.
Either way, they’re insufferable, crass, misanthropic, self-endangering underlings (even if they’re undeniably pretty cool). Either way, it would be strange to think that skating requires a high level of skill in aesthetic perception, judgment, and action. [...]
There was no “falling out” between K2 and I. The simple fact of the matter is they aren’t ready to invest in our sport. I was the only one doing everything for the Varsity skate, and my input would be taken and used sometimes, and sometimes it wouldn’t.
I would never know until I got the sample, which was very unpredictable at best. A long time ago, I told K2 that I would like to spend my career with them and improve their products along the way. My passion is obviously on wheels, but it also lies in the design and function of the products we use everyday as bladers.
I was told that we have no budget for a team, no budget for travel, and no money to help me stay as productive as possible. I was fine with that, believing we could really start something great by just blading and staying positive, and hopefully all of those things would fall inline eventually.
The main reason I had to leave was because a person told me that I would not get design credit for aything, and that an option for a “pro skate” wasn’t an option.
Photo: Taxi 3 (french movie) with Bruno Loewe, Wilfried Rossignol, Marc Dubied, Cedric Duch, Akta IntheSky, Avella Anthony & Freddy Lavaury. More Infos & Rollerblading scenes. Thanks Stephane Alfano.
