YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley has hinted future plans of revenue-sharing at YouTube in the coming months. The BBC is speculating that the ads might take the form of 3-second pre-roll, but Chad Hurley didn’t mention that in his comments.
The millions of YouTube videos is a huge inventory that finally gives advertisers a real reason to start investing in the creation of video ads and begin using Google AdSense Video.
I believe there will be three parties seeking compensation:
- Video content owners — owners of original content. (An audio “fingerprinting” copyright system has been in the works for a while, which will match videos up with content owners, in order to compensate audio/video content owners.)
- Video content creators — users that mash-up content into custom creations.
- Publishers — user/company that displays a video on their website to visitors.
One of the many questions is whether ads will appear on YouTube videos that are displayed on websites outside of YouTube.com. If I’m a publisher, I’d want the option to make revenue on a video I publish — but if I’m a publisher (user) on MySpace, MySpace is the ultimate publisher. MySpace is loaded with YouTube videos, but MySpace doesn’t allow external advertising on their website. Also, MySpace has been blocking external widgets randomly and without explanation, so I would imagine that YouTube wouldn’t take a chance by displaying ads in videos that are seen on MySpace pages. Google is already in bed with MySpace, which could lead to rev-share discussions of ads within YouTube videos that stream on MySpace — and also ensure that YouTube doesn’t ever become an unexplained banned victim of MySpace.
YouTube competitors have worked to differentiate themselves by compensating video content creators, but once YouTube enters this game with their top-dog status already — I question what would make a user go to a lesser-visible video site such as Revver, Guba, Metacafe, etc. Competitors have been struggling of recent — Revver lost two founders and Guba lost its’ CEO and two executives.
Good post, Steve… I certainly think YouTube can monetize by placing short ads at the beginning of each video, regardless of whether or not it’s off/on site. Of course, their ads will have to be cheap because they will likely be based on CPM.
On the competition side, I don’t really see any other players becoming the next +$1B acquisition. I could envision smaller plays selling out cheaper, but these video sites are expensive to operate.
MySpace allows it and YouTube pays them / shares the profit.
it will be a pleasure to me, to watch it.
I have no problem with short ads in the videos. YouTube gave us so much free entertainment, if some little ad will prevent them from getting bankrupt
But, on the other hand, I don’t really care if myspace blocks YouTube. myspace is pretty needless, imao. been there only a few times and hated it.
A brilliant move. Either way, YouTube is still junk.
This is pretty old news.
Hmmmm… this seems quite familiar:
http://socialmedia.groups.vox......b4cd5.html
This blog entry is being directed at the impact YouTube’s revenue sharing will have on the competition (hence the title).
I like the people who comment to let us know this is old news (because if I haven’t heard about it until now, it’s not old… and if I have heard about it, then I don’t need to be reminded that it’s old). Ah, the good ol’ web paradox.
Interesting, there was an article today in RedHerring about Youtube.com and LiveDigital.com about this same topic…
See article here: http://redherring.com/Article......d+Profits+
I’m still not sure how big the “pot” is to split up. After the costs of serving up the content, how much margin is there to split 4 (or more) ways?
I use Revver on one of my sites to try and monetize our video clips, and it’s ok. But you only get the visitors from your site viewing the videos. If YouTube monetize, i’ll definitely be shifting the videos over there and won’t bother with Revver.
Once YouTube starts sharing revenue with publishers Revver will be no more.
i agree with chris dodge. but i remembered that google is building data centers around the country so bandwidth cost is solved. i dont see youtube generating money within a few years though.
I think intro ads would kill You Tube. I’m in You Tube’s target age group, and I sit and watch people for 30 seconds doing stupid stuff because its funny. Add a 5 second commercial at the beginning and I probably don’t click the video. Add it at the end and then maybe you don’t lose my eyeballs. The beauty of the viral video is that people are uploading things just because they want to be seen, not to make money. Start paying them and the viral aspect starts to dwindle. What’s next? Product placement? Mentos turning the Coke and Mentos eruption videos into product placement commercials?
I’ll go to MetaCafe if that happens. Since acquisition I already go to You Tube a whole lost less since all the Comedy Central stuff has been removed.
3 second ads seem short. I seem to remember liking adbrite’s video ad idea.
Yay!! Commercials!!!
I wrote about ads on Youtube back in 2006 when Google bought it out. Find out more:
http://mediavidea.blogspot.com.....gs-to.html
http://mediavidea.blogspot.com.....undup.html
3 seconds ads like Josh said seems very short to make any real revenue. I’ve made a post on my blog yesterday about YouTube may pressure other social medias to begin to share revenue with their users. I think YouTube will find a way to make money and pretty must take over their competitors marketplace with this model.
Also interestingly I received an email from Ty Graham today claiming that he has the patent to where YouTube is heading. You can find that on my blog as well. Check out his email an tell me if it is true!
Now I understand why I received this email below from AdSense as a publisher. AdSense / Adwords & YouTube Integration is coming and will be huge for all.
Dear Publisher,
After a recent review of your site, we would like to include deadcellzones.com in our custom placement packs program. Custom placement packs are selections of individually-reviewed sites designed for our largest brand advertisers.
We would like to feature your site more frequently in these advertiser packages, but to do so, we need you to place more image and text-enabled medium rectangle ad units (300×250) on your site. Visit https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats to see a sample of the medium rectangle unit.
The medium rectangle is the most demanded size among our brand advertisers that utilize these packages for both text and image ads. These advertisers want to ensure they reach visitors on high quality sites like yours, and are willing to bid more for ads prominently displayed on these sites. They require that the units be placed “above the fold” on a page so that the ads are immediately visible to your site’s visitors without scrolling down.
If you decide to add medium rectangle units to your site, please notify us by replying to this email so that we can begin featuring your site in more of our advertiser packages.
We also recommend you use the newly launched ad placements feature to define your ad slots to advertisers so they can bid on specific placements on your site. For instructions on how to create ad placements, please visit https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50691 .
Sincerely,
AdSense Support
YouTube is a dumping ground of junk content and bootleg media. I look at that site in terms of signal to noise ratio. Lots of noise, little signal. What happens when all of the anime, music videos, and other copyright violations are firmly stamped out on YouTube? What happens when Google shifts all of it’s Google Video over to YouTube in an attempt to legitimize the site? Will all the kids on MySpace with their overstuffed profiles still use it? Will they switch to MySpace Video and use that more.
When Google takes YouTube and makes the transition into IPTV things will get interesting. That’s when the knockout blow comes. Because suddenly it’s a heavyweight fight where startups like Revver, Heavy, Metacafe and their clones will have to transition into exclusive content and licensing agreements to the larger players or become niche sites. The battle is still very much kicking up clouds of dust and while you may see YouTube’s head above that could, the dust hasn’t settled yet.
(Side Note)
“Monetization” should be one of 2007’s words of the year.
While it certainly is big news that YouTube is finally moving in the direction of sharing revenue with creators, it’s important to note that there is little detail available on how this will actually happen or who will really benefit most from this arrangement. Revver was built with a revenue-sharing model from the outset. Our technology supports open syndication and equal opportunity earning potential for every video on our system, and our network is free of any copyright violations. Many of our artists have done quite well financially on the Revver network. It’s a big world out there and the demand for online video is growing. With our creator-friendly TOS and comittment to a democratic revenue-sharing model, Revver will continue to be a good home for independent artists’ work.
- Micki, Revver
I embed YouTube videos as a usage model for my site. Having a split of the advertising as a publisher would be welcomed by me of course. But on the flip side do I want my visitors to have to wade through what will end up being minutes of advertising once they watch a volume of videos? It depends on how intrusive it is, I guess. Youtube has to be very careful not to kill the viewing experience.
This is great news. “Knock-out Punch to Competitors” is a little bit of an exaggeration, of course. We are still in the very early days of innovation in what will be the “personalized media experience”. Entertainment is becoming more and more about delivering what you want, when you want it, and where you want it. YouTube (and others, including us at Mefeedia) are far from delivering on this. Meaning, of course, that there is still a lot of opportunity.
-Frank, Mefeedia
The key point for my choice to use revver is that the revver API allows your users to upload videos without leaving the site. As far as I am aware, if I used youtube, the user would have to go off and sign up to youtube. Youtube is not a complete web development api, revver is.
Revenue sharing video sites across the board are probably realising that google has this one stitched up.
Infectious Videos are trying to bail out.
http://www.infectiousvideos.com/index.php?p=news
What kind of brand recognition can an advertiser expect to get in a 3 second ad?
Other than the fact that, yes, YouTube does not yet a revenue model published (or created, according to them), you must remember that not everyone is LonelyGirl15, ZeFrank, Brookers, or the Evolution of Dance guy.
Success on YouTube relies heavily on marketing yourself or being super lucky and getting featured on the front page. In order to be featured, the YouTube editors need to choose your video to be featured (and once they start paying, they are effectively deciding who they will pay, since everyone knows that the chances of you making it on YouTube are slim to none if you’re not featured).
By contract, Metacafe uses its ranking system to push good videos to the top. We don’t decide what videos are released to the Highest Rated pages of the day, etc. Videos are released to the Most Recent page - and to our downloadable application - and if the community likes it - it goes to the Highest Ranked pages, Most Discussed page, etc. Every single video has the same chance of making it. Metacafe pays creators solely on the merits of the video and the views it accumulates - not click-through rates. We’ve had 3 people earn over $20,000 so far, and countless others in the thousands - and they didn’t have to market their videos or beg to be featured to make it.
Yes, it’s exciting that YouTube is going to (eventually) pay users for their content. Don’t forget that it’s very hard to make it, though, and YouTube will have to work out several kinks in the system (including the featured videos) before they begin to pay out.
A new video sharing service which is technologically going even beyond YouTube, has been launched in Jan 2007. It is named MYUBO. Except of web it also supports mobile phones (upload & watch) and supports all data networks even GPRS, EDGE, or CDMA and 3G/UMTS as well.
http://www.myubo.com
http://myubo.mobi
It is in beta phase, but it captured great interest.