YouTube vs Udemy

Last June I published my one and only course on the Udemy platform: Problem-Solving Techniques. It has been a chastening failure as there are only 46 students - most of whom availed of a free voucher scheme I made available through Linkedin shortly after publication. Many of these students have not accessed the course at all. Last year I met an employee of Udemy in Dublin who told me that it was vital to promote the course on social media, get endorsements, and use vouchers to get enrolments. The course has had no enrolments since last September, and has made just $38 in total. I don't have the time, nor the endeavour, to promote the course like it needs - so it will languish in Udemy amongst thousands of other courses. 

Then there's YouTube!

I have just over 72,000 subscribers and almost 30,000,000 views in YouTube. 22 of the 37 videos in the Udemy course are essentially updates of my old Problem-Solving Techniques YouTube Playlist - several of these videos are over ten years old and were made using Windows Movie Maker. Many comments on the videos report poor audio quality. I have now released my Udemy videos on YouTube - here's one example about Pareto Analysis.

I checked with Udemy if this is allowed - and it is. They just ask that I do not charge less than Udemy does ($19.99) on a third party platform. YouTube is not suitable as a full course experience as there is no way (yet) to provide a curriculum structure. The 22 videos are listed in a Playlist, but it is not immediately clear that the videos are part of a course. On each video I link to the Udemy course as a "full learning experience". I also put a note in the old versions that a newer version is available.

This new and updated set of videos will make some money from advertising, though this will take time as they have to build an audience. I will report how YouTube compares to Udemy in a few months time.