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| Peter Cilliers. Photo credit: Beeld newspaper |
South African Peter Cilliers (32) earns in excess of R600 000 per year and is part of YouTube's Millionaires Club. In 2006, weighing 130 kg, he decided to lose weight, and as motivation, created a daily video diary for the next 112 days. Now his YouTube channel has more than 48 million views. The video channel, under the name
moricestreet909, has more than 70 000 subscribers and his
SixPackFactory Web site gets more than 200 000 monthly hits. After losing 45 kg, Peter, originally from Bloemfontein, didn't update the video diary for three years. Last year he started with weekly updates, home workout videos and related content, and turned his hobby into an Internet financial success. His most-viewed video has more than 5.3 million views. In the past 12 months, his views increased from about 15 000 per day to about 60 000 per day, without paid advertising. Through the YouTube Partners Program, he can run adverts with his videos, making money based on the number of hits he gets. After finishing high school, Peter spent six years working in the UK, where he also completed a sports therapist course. He lives in Olympus, Pretoria. Peter shoots his videos at home with an HD camcorder, a few cheap studio lights and uses the free Moviemaker video editing software or Sony Vegas Pro. His Internet connection is a mobile 5Gb. He makes four to five videos in one day, and uploads each one weekly. To save bandwidth, he converts the videos to .wmv format or similar. He spends about one hour daily answering questions from viewers.
