Network Name: Freedom!
Time With Network: 2 months
Total Contract Renewal: No contract
Review: Freedom was a mixed bag, mostly leaning towards the bad end. On the one hand, they have a number of cool features, and their forums have an okay population. On the other hand, a lot of those features are aimed at gaming channels. So I suppose if you're a gaming channel, you'll make use of some of those features, but good luck standing out there. I cannot tell you the sheer number of gaming channels on the Freedom forums. You'd be hard pressed to find a tag other than "Gaming", at least in the forums I frequented (Collabs, Promote Yourself > Comedy). Even though there was a "Gaming" section in "Promote Yourself", most everything in "Comedy" was gaming. Now, we are not a gaming channel, so not many people in the Comedy forums shared our interest, which mitigated our opportunity of reaching new audiences. We did have a collaboration there once, and that turned out decent. But I've had more luck on YTTalk.
On that note, the forums are also hardly moderated. Sometimes one user had around five threads on the first page asking/saying the same thing, and oftentimes something against the rules. I found this frustrating, as it cluttered up the forums.
Freedom doesn't really help you in any way. There's the forums, but that's all on you. There's also the small channel spotlight, but I've never gotten it (not saying this matters or influences my review, just a note), and I don't know how often they do it.
Their dashboard is also buggy, at least when I last checked it. Supposedly a new one is coming, but they've been saying that for a while now apparently. Another thing that's questionable is their revenue split. I understand that they need to make a profit, and 60/40 is okay. But they claim to offer an opportunity to get revenue of up to 110%. This method is still in beta, and while in beta, for lack of better word choice, it doesn't count. So you can't actually get 110% just yet. This has been in beta for a while now.
Support Rating: Their channel support isn't anything too great. We weren't really helped that much after joining, which I sort of expected, as I doubt any network helps out every channel they have. Yeah, we improved some aspects of our channel, but I fully believe that was because we finally started being productive with our channel. Purely coincidence. The forums also have an online chat, which in theory is great, but it's just full of people asking you to watch their video as soon as you're online. Also worth mentioning, there is almost no requirements to join the channel. I've seen so many partners with no subscribers or even videos. Not really helpful. I'd rate their support 5/10. The forums, while not great, did at least get us out there a bit.
Features Rating: Again, we didn't really make much use of the features. There were some that had sounds or music we could use, but I found them to be mediocre, in terms of recording quality and content quality. I looked around, but didn't use any. The dashboard wasn't terrible, but it was buggy and a bit cluttered. I'd rate the features a 3/10
Overall, I'd give Freedom a 4/10, from the perspective of a Sketch Comedy channel. Not really good, but it wasn't completely terrible. The revenue split isn't anything great, and I didn't like that the method to increase revenue was essentially useless.The no lock-in contract is nice, but I still had to open a support ticket with them to fully unlink our account, as it had been over a month since requesting to unlink and we were still linked.
Now we're just partnered straight with YouTube, and sticking to the YTTalk forums. This site is great for any content creator, and each forum has a good variety of everything. I feel like most people join a network just to join a network, and that's bad. I thought Freedom would have pertinent features and help our exposure, but I was wrong. If I think of anything else to say, I'll add it.
Time With Network: 2 months
Total Contract Renewal: No contract
Review: Freedom was a mixed bag, mostly leaning towards the bad end. On the one hand, they have a number of cool features, and their forums have an okay population. On the other hand, a lot of those features are aimed at gaming channels. So I suppose if you're a gaming channel, you'll make use of some of those features, but good luck standing out there. I cannot tell you the sheer number of gaming channels on the Freedom forums. You'd be hard pressed to find a tag other than "Gaming", at least in the forums I frequented (Collabs, Promote Yourself > Comedy). Even though there was a "Gaming" section in "Promote Yourself", most everything in "Comedy" was gaming. Now, we are not a gaming channel, so not many people in the Comedy forums shared our interest, which mitigated our opportunity of reaching new audiences. We did have a collaboration there once, and that turned out decent. But I've had more luck on YTTalk.
On that note, the forums are also hardly moderated. Sometimes one user had around five threads on the first page asking/saying the same thing, and oftentimes something against the rules. I found this frustrating, as it cluttered up the forums.
Freedom doesn't really help you in any way. There's the forums, but that's all on you. There's also the small channel spotlight, but I've never gotten it (not saying this matters or influences my review, just a note), and I don't know how often they do it.
Their dashboard is also buggy, at least when I last checked it. Supposedly a new one is coming, but they've been saying that for a while now apparently. Another thing that's questionable is their revenue split. I understand that they need to make a profit, and 60/40 is okay. But they claim to offer an opportunity to get revenue of up to 110%. This method is still in beta, and while in beta, for lack of better word choice, it doesn't count. So you can't actually get 110% just yet. This has been in beta for a while now.
Support Rating: Their channel support isn't anything too great. We weren't really helped that much after joining, which I sort of expected, as I doubt any network helps out every channel they have. Yeah, we improved some aspects of our channel, but I fully believe that was because we finally started being productive with our channel. Purely coincidence. The forums also have an online chat, which in theory is great, but it's just full of people asking you to watch their video as soon as you're online. Also worth mentioning, there is almost no requirements to join the channel. I've seen so many partners with no subscribers or even videos. Not really helpful. I'd rate their support 5/10. The forums, while not great, did at least get us out there a bit.
Features Rating: Again, we didn't really make much use of the features. There were some that had sounds or music we could use, but I found them to be mediocre, in terms of recording quality and content quality. I looked around, but didn't use any. The dashboard wasn't terrible, but it was buggy and a bit cluttered. I'd rate the features a 3/10
Overall, I'd give Freedom a 4/10, from the perspective of a Sketch Comedy channel. Not really good, but it wasn't completely terrible. The revenue split isn't anything great, and I didn't like that the method to increase revenue was essentially useless.The no lock-in contract is nice, but I still had to open a support ticket with them to fully unlink our account, as it had been over a month since requesting to unlink and we were still linked.
Now we're just partnered straight with YouTube, and sticking to the YTTalk forums. This site is great for any content creator, and each forum has a good variety of everything. I feel like most people join a network just to join a network, and that's bad. I thought Freedom would have pertinent features and help our exposure, but I was wrong. If I think of anything else to say, I'll add it.
