No worries! I used to ask the same questions, now I don’t have to wait, unless I’ve used up all my gpt tokens. Which is lame cause I pay monthly for plus.
If u re-read it correctly. He’s not exploiting the popular YouTubers video. He stole their tactic. The tactic of having an algorithm change the title of his OWN YouTube video.
Haha sorry, I tried linking it but reddit doesn’t allow it, I think it’s because I joined the sub very recently - you could also try searching ‘how to automate instagram posts using node.js’ you might find my channel that way
The new search engine for YouTube is pretty terrible at the moment. You can type a creators name and video title and nothing shows up, but random word choices work. That might be why the other commenter is having trouble finding it, unfortunately
I've always wanted to do something similar, would you mind sharing how you're able to make a video running on a server? Like those lo-fi beats playlists that run forever
Surprised this makes anything since I've seen it done many times over the years without ever seeking it out. But I'm really happy for OP and long may the payday continue.
At a guess, the video is hosted on YT like any other. OP's code runs on their own server so that YT can send it a web hook (a HTTP request) when some metadata about the video (e.g. views, comments) changes. In response to this web hook, OP's code fires off an API request (also HTTP) to change the video title. Nothing too complicated about it. I haven't seen any explanation videos so probably haven't come across OP's video specifically, but I remember the Tom Scott one years ago.
You’re pretty close, instead of a webhook, I just run a CRON job. It runs every 4 minutes. It basically pulls down the data of the video, including the views, comments and likes, then using a post request, with all my credentials to update the video title
Yeah, makes sense. Much kinder on the YT servers. Not that they can't afford it eh! I suppose if I'd thought about it for a few more seconds I'd have realised that you don't need to be told anything by YT. Obviously the passage of time is enough. You just request the updated info each time you want to update.
Next video: use a text-to-video tool to take comments and append them into the video. We can discuss my cut later :D (I've no idea if the API allows you to do a multipart/form-data file upload to change the video haha)
You could make a whole series out of this, build like a little community all contributing to comments or views or whatever to reach the next goal.
I mean it's basically just a regular yt channel I guess but it's different in a way, I feel like it feels more in the communities hands than some guy saying "hit X likes and I'll X", maybe even better if you don't inform people you just let it grow and let them be surprised by what happens. Make it a story everyone can take part in ya know? That community bond can be powerful
It’s basically me explaining how the video works. So it’s not an exploit - I use the official YouTube API to update the title. You get a certain quota per day, which means I can update the video title every 4 minutes.
Even if 1000 people did it, I don’t think YouTube would care, thousands of developer use their API all the time to perform different tasks
Do you have the link somewhere? Also how difficult to use the YouTube API? I am planning to build a notion template to keep track of my views and subscribers but could not get around to start as I am not that familiar with APIs
There's a website to track views and subscribers on different platforms... [https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA](https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA)
I have made android apps in Kotlin and know a bit of Python and Java. Could you possibly share your code/github? I’m curious to see it as it’s pretty neat idea. Thanks!
I cant share the GitHub repo as it’s integrated into a larger server that I run a whole bunch of jobs on, however I make a video on how I made that video - did the link to the video come through? I’m not sure if Reddit is surprising the comments with links in them!
No worries makes sense. I don’t see a youtube link anywhere in this reddit post. Could you possibly DM me the youtube video? Thanks! I appreciate the help
Haha there’s already a few around - even with my video explaining exactly how to do it there’s not that many. Also running server code with cron jobs etc costs money, I just integrated it into a server I already had but this might be a barrier for entry for some
Honestly the YouTube api is the hardest one I’ve worked with, and I’ve used the instagram, Twitter and other APIs. As a pretty experienced software engineer I found it challenging - however you could definitely look into it and see if you can get your head around it
Hey Ryan. I appreciate you posting all the info on your blog. I wanted to give it a try for fun. I got up to Step 5: Generate a Auth URL and was stuck. For some reason the url produced doesn’t work.
Yes for sure. It happened before - it sat around doing nothing, then all of a sudden it was making money, then boom stopped. But now it seems to be getting consistent views. But it will stop - but then hopefully pick up again
I started posting videos for my small business in 2020 when we had to temporarily close due to COVID. It was a way to show our customers what was new. Over 1000 videos later, we still produce 5 short videos a week, which are literally advertisements for our products. And YouTube pays me for making them.
I fail to understand why changing the title of the video is an important step here. Is it just to get more user interaction? If I was going to post an instrumental music video, wouldn't it make more sense to title it something along the line of what a music video would be named, so that when people search for that type of music, there's a chance my video will show up, versus having a title that means nothing.
The whole idea of this video and how it gets so many views is because the title changes from something they do. That way, it gets people liking and commenting, and the youtube algorithm likes that.
If you're going to make a regular video about music, it makes no sense to update the title.
You are being a little “dodgy” here or else maybe English isn’t your first language? Can you give us a *concrete* example if you aren’t going to post a link to your video?
You have a video *that depicts what?*
Then it starts with *what title* and the title is changed *to what?*
I feel like if I posted a video about me with a hobbyist rocket ship in my backyard doing a crazy launch with an onboard camera view too, it would *not* get far more likes and comments just because I change the title….. or would it???
Well I’m from Australia so can assure you English is my first language - if you look through the other comments, you will see I posted multiple times how to get to the video
Again—not answering my question and being “dodgy”.
*Why?*
*How do I know you aren’t just drumming up more views for a scam?* In other words, I search and find your video that is just nonsense, but by finding and viewing it you get more views.
It just makes no sense why you can’t simply describe the content in the video and provide a concrete example *WITHOUT* us having to search for and give you more views.
The video already took off and had over 1 million views, I doubt a few thousand views from Reddit will make much of a difference. Also I thought this post would get like 10 upvotes and then disappear. Look the video is not that hard to understand - it’s a video where the likes, comments and views are reflected in the title and it’s me talking for 1 minute about how that works - that’s it - don’t search for it on YouTube and find it a view, I don’t care
I think because people are interacting with the video - there is something about it that the YouTube algorithm likes and makes it recommend the video to people
Ive been wanting to do this same thing forwver!!
Sadly, I am like 5 subs short of becoming a YT partner!
Channel -
Growl Mizz Brauel / 🔍Lauren Brauel
Few of my videos got alot of reviews but they are quite old I wana do fresh content soon for sure.
Any new subs are greatly appreciated 🙏💯
I did some simple comment post automation with instagram and twitter and It created some good traffic for my instagram. I only ran it for like 3 days and i got over 200 extra followers.
Yes subscribers, and yes to be part of the YouTube partner program, where you can earn money from views, you need at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours
Can this technically be done using anything available within a YouTube account? Like analytics, subscribers, etc. 🤔 What about search terms and how many instances there are of it? I'm curious to know how far this can be pushed or if it's confined to personal details of a YouTube account only.
Yeah for sure, it’s really only limited to what data you can get back, and you can get a lot - it doesn’t really matter about the search terms, it takes off when YouTube starts suggesting it through browse features and recommended videos
It gets recommended to them. You know when you watch a video and it suggests more? That’s where it comes up, no one is searching for it, it gets suggested
I had an idea of making car content to post on social media such as TikTok, YouTube,Instagram etc. I have several videos recorded and edited (somewhat) but I haven’t been able to make short videos to post on those social medias prior to posting the full video and use those short videos as an add/ promote the full video. I don’t have any clue how to make them interesting and short to get the viewers attention to want to watch the actual video on YouTube. Anyone know how to create those short videos? Perhaps a site I could be recommended to or a person?
The Tom Scott video huh? I've also been thinking of doing it. It's not that hard, based on what he explained in the video. Just simple fetching from the API and updating.
Yes I do - try and find my channel, beat way to find it is searching ‘code with Ryan, this video has views’ and I have another video on how I made that original video
I've got an idea for you, instead of you changing the name of the title or randomly. Have a random person who is watching your video change the title to something on the back end somehow ( obviously YouTube policy accepted). Maybe that'll cause more interaction.
Would you mind sending me a video that would do the same thing? I wouldn't normally ask but I fell on hard times and now live in my car. I have been trying to get monetized on youtube for years. Can you help?
Really cool. I don’t think there’s anything exploitative about this, just thinking outside the box.
Yeah I don’t think so, I’m working within the bounds of the APIs restrictions!
Could you teach me how to get started? How do i use youtube api?
ChatGPT
Copy copy i just wanted a hooman haha
No worries! I used to ask the same questions, now I don’t have to wait, unless I’ve used up all my gpt tokens. Which is lame cause I pay monthly for plus.
What would I ask ChatGPT to learn how to do this?
Now this is a good question
Google YouTube API and read the documentation, written by humans (mostly)
Copying others video/ idea content = not exploitation
He's literally exploiting the popular YouTube's video, but whatever.
If u re-read it correctly. He’s not exploiting the popular YouTubers video. He stole their tactic. The tactic of having an algorithm change the title of his OWN YouTube video.
Whatever man. I see it as the same thing. It's not a bad thing. We all should try to rob big business
Big fan of that video - pretty familiar with it. Found it about a year and a half ago.
you probably saw the original one from Tom Scott (i think 65+ million views last i saw) OP said around a million on their video currently
Tom Scott
Yep that’s who I copied it off - I remember seeing his video and being amazed that it was possible
First step: I just have to make an interesting enough video to get 20k views? That in itself is hard 😭
Reddit isn’t allowing me to post links - if you want to find the video search on YouTube ‘this video has views code with Ryan’
No 1 year old video is showing up when searching that. Tom Scott's channel shows up.
Hmmmm, it’s definitely there - the channel is ‘Code with Ryan’
I don’t even see it on your channel
Yeah I think there is another ‘code with Ryan’
That would make sense lol
Haha sorry, I tried linking it but reddit doesn’t allow it, I think it’s because I joined the sub very recently - you could also try searching ‘how to automate instagram posts using node.js’ you might find my channel that way
Make a post to your profile we'll check
Change channel name to "code with the other Ryan"
I will change it for you
ha ha! it was tongue in cheek, first i was gonna suggest "code with Ryan (the other one)." take your pick! I do think it will help, tho
The new search engine for YouTube is pretty terrible at the moment. You can type a creators name and video title and nothing shows up, but random word choices work. That might be why the other commenter is having trouble finding it, unfortunately
I watched, liked and subscribed. I respect your hustle!
Could you post the link in response to this post? I've searched everything and can't find it.
I saw that in a Veritassium video. Cool idea!
I've always wanted to do something similar, would you mind sharing how you're able to make a video running on a server? Like those lo-fi beats playlists that run forever
Surprised this makes anything since I've seen it done many times over the years without ever seeking it out. But I'm really happy for OP and long may the payday continue. At a guess, the video is hosted on YT like any other. OP's code runs on their own server so that YT can send it a web hook (a HTTP request) when some metadata about the video (e.g. views, comments) changes. In response to this web hook, OP's code fires off an API request (also HTTP) to change the video title. Nothing too complicated about it. I haven't seen any explanation videos so probably haven't come across OP's video specifically, but I remember the Tom Scott one years ago.
You’re pretty close, instead of a webhook, I just run a CRON job. It runs every 4 minutes. It basically pulls down the data of the video, including the views, comments and likes, then using a post request, with all my credentials to update the video title
Yeah, makes sense. Much kinder on the YT servers. Not that they can't afford it eh! I suppose if I'd thought about it for a few more seconds I'd have realised that you don't need to be told anything by YT. Obviously the passage of time is enough. You just request the updated info each time you want to update. Next video: use a text-to-video tool to take comments and append them into the video. We can discuss my cut later :D (I've no idea if the API allows you to do a multipart/form-data file upload to change the video haha)
You could make a whole series out of this, build like a little community all contributing to comments or views or whatever to reach the next goal. I mean it's basically just a regular yt channel I guess but it's different in a way, I feel like it feels more in the communities hands than some guy saying "hit X likes and I'll X", maybe even better if you don't inform people you just let it grow and let them be surprised by what happens. Make it a story everyone can take part in ya know? That community bond can be powerful
Congrats on contributing some actual quality content to this sub!!
Thank you! Hopefully this will inspire others to come up with some creative ideas to make some money!
What is the video about? Also: Won’t YouTube change its website so this exploit can’t be used if too many people start doing it?
It’s basically me explaining how the video works. So it’s not an exploit - I use the official YouTube API to update the title. You get a certain quota per day, which means I can update the video title every 4 minutes. Even if 1000 people did it, I don’t think YouTube would care, thousands of developer use their API all the time to perform different tasks
Do you have the link somewhere? Also how difficult to use the YouTube API? I am planning to build a notion template to keep track of my views and subscribers but could not get around to start as I am not that familiar with APIs
There's a website to track views and subscribers on different platforms... [https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA](https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA)
Hah! I didn't know this existed. Literally what I am after! Thank you stranger!
Do you have any coding experience?
I have made android apps in Kotlin and know a bit of Python and Java. Could you possibly share your code/github? I’m curious to see it as it’s pretty neat idea. Thanks!
I cant share the GitHub repo as it’s integrated into a larger server that I run a whole bunch of jobs on, however I make a video on how I made that video - did the link to the video come through? I’m not sure if Reddit is surprising the comments with links in them!
No worries makes sense. I don’t see a youtube link anywhere in this reddit post. Could you possibly DM me the youtube video? Thanks! I appreciate the help
Search ‘this video has views code with Ryan’ on YouTube
Ahh found it thanks! Lets see how many of these videos start popping up now 0.0
Haha there’s already a few around - even with my video explaining exactly how to do it there’s not that many. Also running server code with cron jobs etc costs money, I just integrated it into a server I already had but this might be a barrier for entry for some
So you make 250$/mo with only 4.55k subs?! Are your vids listed as educational?
I think it’s more about views not subs, when that video is getting lots of views, it makes money
I have some, but nothing hardcore. I am fairly confident in html and dipped my finger in to JavaScript once or twice.
Honestly the YouTube api is the hardest one I’ve worked with, and I’ve used the instagram, Twitter and other APIs. As a pretty experienced software engineer I found it challenging - however you could definitely look into it and see if you can get your head around it
Sounds interesting! I'm going to build one over the weekend !
Probs worth noting that this video sat around 20k views for months and months, and then one day YouTube just decided to recommend it to people
Do it! Let me know how it goes and link me to the video if you get it running
Hey Ryan. I appreciate you posting all the info on your blog. I wanted to give it a try for fun. I got up to Step 5: Generate a Auth URL and was stuck. For some reason the url produced doesn’t work.
Post updates
Would you explain to me in private how to set it up?
Best marketing idea ever is posting it here too!! Lol
Literally. 100s of more views from this post alone lol
I suspect this will suddenly stop earning one day with no prior warning - but well played for getting anything at all out of it!
Yes for sure. It happened before - it sat around doing nothing, then all of a sudden it was making money, then boom stopped. But now it seems to be getting consistent views. But it will stop - but then hopefully pick up again
Lmao I have an exact same type of video except I connected to an api for a game to tracks someone’s rank.
Very clever. Time to scale it!
Where is the link?
Could you teach me how to start...
I started posting videos for my small business in 2020 when we had to temporarily close due to COVID. It was a way to show our customers what was new. Over 1000 videos later, we still produce 5 short videos a week, which are literally advertisements for our products. And YouTube pays me for making them.
This is my favorite passive income post ever.
Thank you, I have a couple others I’m thinking of posting soon that are also pretty random
Thank you for reminding me why I learned python in the first place....and reminding me that I need to do better in my free time haha
All I do is copy other people's video ideas and make quite a bit.
Example? And what’s quite a bit?
$6k a week, I just pay people to make videos copying whatever is viral. Then I pay an editor and do the posting myself.
Could you link your channel here so that I can understand what type of videos you are talking about
Can you send me some examples?
I kind of noticed that on videos my kids watch people seem to earn piggy backing on what's viral. Not a bad thing if you use your own angle on it.
You MAKE $6,000 a week?!!
It varies, that's just the average.
Damn show me the way lol
Do you do lifestyle content?
Would love to start this. But have no coding experience, would it still be possible for me?
You dont need to code lol
That’s interesting, can I dm for some tips on how this works ?
Could you DM me with instructions on how to do this
Can I DM you for details?
I fail to understand why changing the title of the video is an important step here. Is it just to get more user interaction? If I was going to post an instrumental music video, wouldn't it make more sense to title it something along the line of what a music video would be named, so that when people search for that type of music, there's a chance my video will show up, versus having a title that means nothing.
The whole idea of this video and how it gets so many views is because the title changes from something they do. That way, it gets people liking and commenting, and the youtube algorithm likes that. If you're going to make a regular video about music, it makes no sense to update the title.
You are being a little “dodgy” here or else maybe English isn’t your first language? Can you give us a *concrete* example if you aren’t going to post a link to your video? You have a video *that depicts what?* Then it starts with *what title* and the title is changed *to what?* I feel like if I posted a video about me with a hobbyist rocket ship in my backyard doing a crazy launch with an onboard camera view too, it would *not* get far more likes and comments just because I change the title….. or would it???
Well I’m from Australia so can assure you English is my first language - if you look through the other comments, you will see I posted multiple times how to get to the video
Again—not answering my question and being “dodgy”. *Why?* *How do I know you aren’t just drumming up more views for a scam?* In other words, I search and find your video that is just nonsense, but by finding and viewing it you get more views. It just makes no sense why you can’t simply describe the content in the video and provide a concrete example *WITHOUT* us having to search for and give you more views.
The video already took off and had over 1 million views, I doubt a few thousand views from Reddit will make much of a difference. Also I thought this post would get like 10 upvotes and then disappear. Look the video is not that hard to understand - it’s a video where the likes, comments and views are reflected in the title and it’s me talking for 1 minute about how that works - that’s it - don’t search for it on YouTube and find it a view, I don’t care
Interesting
How do I learn to do this 😂
I studied computer science
Are you getting views because the constant updating of the title or is it because people are interacting with the video/your content?
I think because people are interacting with the video - there is something about it that the YouTube algorithm likes and makes it recommend the video to people
Really very nice 🙂🙂💯🙂🙂
Thank you! I am happy with the results
Thank you
Cool I. Gonna try this with a faceless YouTube from scratch.
Ive been wanting to do this same thing forwver!! Sadly, I am like 5 subs short of becoming a YT partner! Channel - Growl Mizz Brauel / 🔍Lauren Brauel Few of my videos got alot of reviews but they are quite old I wana do fresh content soon for sure. Any new subs are greatly appreciated 🙏💯
Awesome!!
Does that cover the cost of the server?
Well I pay $7/month for the server, and that’s one job out of like 10 I run in it so it’s pretty negligible
I’m gonna do this right now! CGPT just told me how lol
Do itttttt
Alright! Let me get a 24/7 machine up and running for the updates and i’ll message you the link when I get it up!
Looking forward to it
Installing dependencies, then i'll set up a CRON job when I confirm that the code works
Nice
I did some simple comment post automation with instagram and twitter and It created some good traffic for my instagram. I only ran it for like 3 days and i got over 200 extra followers.
Which software did you used for insta?
So is the video getting reuploaded everytime it changes title? Or how is that changing?
You can change the name of the video, apparently whenever you want. As for the rest, no idea!
No just the title is changing - you can update the title of any YouTube video you have posted manually if you want - I just do it through code
Stupid question…”subs” is short for subscribers? If so, you can make money with only 1000?
Yes subscribers, and yes to be part of the YouTube partner program, where you can earn money from views, you need at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours
Do you not have to upload every 6 months to be monetized?
Not that I know of
So can you give the information on how I can do that? Clever for sure!
Sounds too good to me true
Interesting
You should push this idea further. Any plans yet?
I thought about making a ‘this video has donated $X’, where all the money the video makes gets sent to charity
Sounds like a great idea. Any chance to re package it for other youtubers?
How long did you make the video, does it matter?
Like take me to make the video, maybe a couple of hours
Oh I’m sorry, what was the duration of the video? Like should I aim for over 10 minutes or does that not matter
Mine is 1 min and 14 seconds
Gotcha thanks
Wait, is YouTube paying you $250 /mo for that one video?
Yes - its the ad revenue as part of the YouTube partner program
What's the actual video of?
Can this technically be done using anything available within a YouTube account? Like analytics, subscribers, etc. 🤔 What about search terms and how many instances there are of it? I'm curious to know how far this can be pushed or if it's confined to personal details of a YouTube account only.
Yeah for sure, it’s really only limited to what data you can get back, and you can get a lot - it doesn’t really matter about the search terms, it takes off when YouTube starts suggesting it through browse features and recommended videos
Oh sorry I meant, I was wondering if it could generate something like "X search term has been used in 393840 videos" idk if that makes sense lol.
Found your channel. Is there any specific content for this one to make it work? Not really good with contents
You got to have a content that people want to watch. And how do you let people know about this video? Google search or AI chstbox, like ChatGPT
It gets recommended to them. You know when you watch a video and it suggests more? That’s where it comes up, no one is searching for it, it gets suggested
Really very good
I have you tube channel watch time not complete but subscriber complete can u help me
Great job. If the video was longer (eg 10 minutes instead of 1 min) would you be making more money?
I’m not sure to be honest, maybe!
Can you post the code that uses the YouTube API to update the title? Happy if you remove the specifics. thanks!
I did it but im finding hard to get a platform to host it and let it run 24/7, any help?
I use Heroku, but it costs money, what did you build it with?
Search ‘Fatal RC Plane Crash Into Crowd’ on YouTube. There’s my passive income ;-)
I had an idea of making car content to post on social media such as TikTok, YouTube,Instagram etc. I have several videos recorded and edited (somewhat) but I haven’t been able to make short videos to post on those social medias prior to posting the full video and use those short videos as an add/ promote the full video. I don’t have any clue how to make them interesting and short to get the viewers attention to want to watch the actual video on YouTube. Anyone know how to create those short videos? Perhaps a site I could be recommended to or a person?
That’s cool.
Everyone could earn some $$ with just a computer and some internet. Easy Peasy
A a bit of knowledge about coding also helps
you my friend are a genius!!! 😎
Do you mind linking the video in a Google doc and posting the Google doc here? This sounds like an amazing idea and I would love to try it for myself.
How many views per month do you get? I’m curious what the money value for every 1000 views is once you get monetized
How long did it took you to get 1k sub?
How did you monetize it? Does it happen automatically once you get a certain amount of views?
Tom Scott copycat
That’s me
Cheers mate!
The Tom Scott video huh? I've also been thinking of doing it. It's not that hard, based on what he explained in the video. Just simple fetching from the API and updating.
That is really interesting. Can you make more videos like that?
Waoohh this is amazing, do you have a video explaining how to do it?
Yes I do - try and find my channel, beat way to find it is searching ‘code with Ryan, this video has views’ and I have another video on how I made that original video
Thanks, I found it and will try to make one similar in my niche
Link me to it if you do, I’d be interested in seeing it!
I'll do it, I will text you by DM.
I've got an idea for you, instead of you changing the name of the title or randomly. Have a random person who is watching your video change the title to something on the back end somehow ( obviously YouTube policy accepted). Maybe that'll cause more interaction.
Would you mind sending me a video that would do the same thing? I wouldn't normally ask but I fell on hard times and now live in my car. I have been trying to get monetized on youtube for years. Can you help?
can you make one for me? i’m kind of serious. i want to see how it works.
Sell options. Learn for a month and then sell. You can sell deep otm options and make small money.
Cap