According to the Wall Street Journal, Ray William Johnson may be the first YouTube millionaire that isn’t already a famous musician.
Under the name RayWJ, the 30-year-old now has 1.5 billion views of his videos on YouTube, and is expected to be bringing in about $1 million per year from YouTube’s ad revenue share and from sales of his merchandise.
Johnson is famous for ranting about other videos (somewhat like the shows “The Soup” or “Tosh.0″) and for bringing in famous comedians to guest star in videos. The viral star’s twice-weekly show averages around 10 million views per week.
Because of his popularity, RayWJ is a YouTube partner that makes somewhere between $3000 and $9000 per every 2 million views.
For now, Johnson still calls his videos a “hobby.”
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One day after the Wall Street Journal reported that a Verizon iPhone 4 was coming on Tuesday, sources speaking to Reuters have confirmed the claims.
Sales of the device are expected to launch in early February.
As with all prior reports, Apple and Verizon have not commented on the “speculation.”
AT&T has been the exclusive American carrier for the iPhone since its inception in 2007. Analysts have warned that losing the exclusivity pact, and the strong growth driver that is the iPhone, may affect the company’s bottom line for some time. Other analysts have warned that frustrated AT&T iPhone owners may jump ship to Verizon, who is known to have the most reliable network of the major carriers.
On the other hand, analysts also claim that a majority of AT&T’s iPhone owners are part of family plans, which are much harder to cancel as they involve, on average, three family members.
Furthermore, many are new upgraders or purchasers, and AT&T charges very heavy early termination fees.
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The Wall Street Journal has reported that Amazon.com is planning to open an applications store for the Android mobile platform. Such a store would mimic Apple’s App Store for iPhones and iPads. Google’s Android Marketplace currently has about 80,000 applications, compared to 270,000 available in the Apple Store.
An Amazon spokesman told Reuters in an e-mail reply that the company has not made any such announcement yet, while Google declined comment completely, reminding the news outlet that it does not comment on rumor or speculation.
According to the WSJ, Amazon will offer developers 70 percent of the revenue from any sales, which is the same Apple offers app developers for its own platforms.
Android is being used in mobile devices such as Motorola’s Droid and Samsung’s Galaxy S, and is quickly gaining popularity in the smartphone market.
