As you mentioned in earlier posts, when you edit videos you are taking tons of footage and whittling it down to create your best product. We’re doing the same thing with our material, and the small stages are where we do our whittling. A new comedian, putting up her unrefined material on youtube, would be akin to you posting a very roughly edited video. Those who are interested in the process may find it rewarding but bookers and agents (who are constantly approached or contacted by new comedians and are time crunched) may not have the be to watch all your videos and appreciate your growth.

Stand-up is very much a “best face forward” business, and when competing with others who are putting their best face forward online, it seems like losing proposition. We live or die on that first impression, on stage or online, and the risk of looking bad or putting something out that might turn away even a fraction of our audience or future performing activities feels like it’s too great to take.

I think the theme of free work leading to meaningful work is brilliant, but comedians do so much free work before even the hope of getting paid that we have to have limits on how much we can give away. Unlike musicians, we can’t sell ring-tones or singles, and records sales for even the best comedians are far short of musicians regularly get. We have to guard our most valuable assets, our live act. If we give away too much of it, it will most likely diminish our power and presence because people will have heard the material already and that crucial element of surprise will be lost.

I wholly agree that the comedy club system is broken and does not deliver the best comedians but I don’t think it can be replaced with the youtube system, at least not yet.

As I read these arguments, I realize that perhaps there is a new comedian out there who will figure out how to best use these new tools.

PS- It’s quite easy to record yourself at almost any venue or show. No one ever objects.

I’m not sure what to make of the rest of your points. I don’t think either of them detract from or refute what I said. They just kind of state the obvious.

1) you dont need youtube to get your material stolen… it happens in clubs, people change a few words and spit your joke out next week.

2) youtube can work but you have to spend hours and hours on self promotion. How bad do you want it?

3) The bigger names in comedy spend years getting an hours worth of material… once they become big alot of them hire writers… TV and Internet eat up your material.

Regarding your question about whether I think the path to success has changed: only slightly, but not in the way you think. The sequence is the same but the wording has changed. You have to have good content before everything else. Good content sustains itself and is the foundation that everything rests upon. You no longer ‘get noticed,’ in my mind, but rather you ‘build a tribe.’ You get a devoted following that devours everything you put out, and you build relationships with all of your fans. Then you get paid.

Re: Difficulty of getting tapes of yourself
I’ve been able to video tape or voice record every one of my performances since I started in July. (60 performances and counting.) Voice recording is simple as you can get a digital voice recorder for under $50. Also, most clubs will let you video record yourself if you ask them first. Many digital still cameras have a video recording mode that you can use for amateur films or you can invest $300-$500 in a decent quality digital video camera these days.

Question for you: I previously read that the path of “success” in comedy was: 1) Get Good 2) Get Noticed 3) Get Paid. Do you think web 2.0 has changed this path?

Here’s the difference between youtube and viddler:

* Youtube is awesome if you want more exposure. That’s where everyone is — it’s the mass market, so you need to hang out there if you want to get discovered.
* Viddler is great for bloggers because it gives you a lot of control of your material, and it also puts a lot of that control into the hands of your viewers, as well. If they want to make a comment on a certain mark in your video, they can do it.

To be honest though — there’s really no substantial difference. Use youtube if you want more viewers and accidental discoveries of your material. Use viddler if you want to have a nicer interface. That’s pretty much the bottom line.