At Davos last week Chad Hurley, one of YouTube’s founders, announced that video sharing mega-lith will be sharing its advertising revenues with content creators.
This moves down the same path as similar, but less popular, video sharing site Revver – who started out in 2005 on this premise.
Hurley said the idea behind the revenue sharing model was a way of “improving the content” on the site.
It’s an interesting move for YouTube to do this, and definitely a wise one as after the billion dollar acquisition by Google there was a wiff of jealously in the ranks of YouTubers, so sharing some of the revenues seems like a good way to placate users and spread the YouTube love.
The most interesting aspect is how the addition of advertising into YouTube will affect its use by brands launching their virals. Will brands want their branded content sanwiched between an other brands advertising? The answer to that is probably no, however it’s an indicator of how viral / the online content space is maturing into a space that looks scarily like TV
Posted By
ChrisQ