Contributors to yuvutu can qualify for a free subscription instead of paying for one.

All registered users have a yuvutu index which is a measure of the popularity of the content they have contributed to the site. Once the yuvutu index exceeds 50 000, the user automatically gets a free subscription to the premium service for the period that the index remains above 50 000. If you are logged in, you can see your yuvutu index at the top of the page, immediately below the language flags. You can see a history of your yuvutu index for the last 30 days by clicking on the yuvutu index link.

The more people view the your content, the more your yuvutu index goes up. There are 3 ways to increase your yuvutu index:

1. Profile Page Views - Each unique view of your profile page by a visitor counts as one point toward your yuvutu index.
    
2. Photo Views - Each unique view of a qualifying set of your photos by a visitor counts as one point toward your yuvutu index. To qualify for inclusion in your yuvutu index, your sets:
   • must have a minimum of 4 photos,
   • must be less than 6 months old and
   • must be rated 3 stars or more.
   
    
3. Video Views - Each unique view of a qualifying video by a visitor counts as one point toward your yuvutu index. To qualify for inclusion in your yuvutu index, your videos:
   • must be amateur,
   • must be less than six months old and
   • must be rated 3 stars or more.

• Unlimited video views per day.
• Higher bandwidth and faster video streaming.
• Full screen video playback.
• Power search (more fields to search on).
• Playlists.
• Alerts (receive messages when your friends are online, upload new content, etc.).
• RSS feeds.

And more. Click here for more details.

• Promote your profile page (see below for tips on promoting). Get visits to your profile page by promoting it on the internet.
• Customise your profile page. Stand out from the crowd by customising and creating your own mini-site on yuvutu (see below for tips on customising).
• Upload quality content. If your videos are too short or badly lit then they are unlikely to get rated 3 stars or more by your viewers.
• Keep your content fresh. Videos and photos get most of their views in the first few days. Keep uploading fresh content to keep your views high. Keep posting new entries to your blog to keep people coming back to your profile page.

There's more to yuvutu than just watching videos and looking at pictures. Every day, thousands of people register with yuvutu. Registering not only gives you access to more features (such as favourite videos and photos), it opens up the whole yuvutu community to you. You will be able to meet and interact with other like-minded people through our chat room, private messaging and most importantly through your own personal space on yuvutu - your profile page.

Your profile page showcases you and your work to your audience. On it, people will be able to see your profile, your blog, your latest videos and your latest photos and leave you feedback.

Best of all, you can customise your profile page to reflect your personality.

To get the most from your profile page - and from the yuvutu community - you'll need to:

• complete your profile,
• customise your profile page and
• promote your profile page.

A completed profile helps your standing in the yuvutu community. People in chat are more open to others who have a completed profile and it helps others with similar interests find you.

To complete your profile page, once you have registered and are logged in, simply click on the "Your Account" link at the top of the page.

Customising your profile page lets you turn this:

into this:

Some of the other things you can do to your profile page:

• Choose which blocks are displayed (blog, videos, photos and all the rest) - you can turn your profile page into your own dedicated blog, if that's what you want.
• Change the order of the blocks.
• Choose from 1-column or 2-column layout.
• Change the colour of text, blocks, titles, background, borders, links and other elements on the page.
• Choose one of your photos as the background of your page.

The more people visit your page, the more you will get out of yuvutu. Not only will you get to talk to and share with the rest of our community, but if your yuvutu index goes over 50 000 you'll get a free subscription.

Remember - every visit to your profile page in the last 6 months increases your yuvutu index.

Here are a few tips on promoting your profile page:

• The first thing to do is to note the shortcut link to your profile page. This will be "http://www.yuvutu.com/nickname" - nickname is your account's username. Try it now - if you have registered on yuvutu, enter your short url into your browser's address bar and see what comes up.
• Tell other people about your page. If you have a blog on another site, why not mention it? Mention it in yuvutu's chat, chat on other sites, MSN and the like.
• Forums and comments on other people's blogs are also good places to mention your profile page - but please, keep it relevant. We don't want you to alienate people by spamming your own profile page throughout the internet!
• Consider advertising your profile page on your own videos or photos, with a watermark for example.

If you post the address of your profile page on another site you'll need to create a link. On some sites, you can simply type in the url of your page (http://www.yuvutu.com/nickname). On others you'll need to create a link. A sample html link follows, although rules differ for diffent types of blogs and bulletin boards.

<a href="http://www.yuvutu.com/nickname">nickname's page</a>