Today’s buzz is that YouTube has decided to increase the amount of advertising revenue they are willing to share with those who put up videos that are heavily frequented. The site already shares advertising revenue with members of their partnership program and many have earned thousands of dollars as a result.
From today YouTube will email anyone who has a popular video and invite them to take part in revenue sharing on a one off basis, although they could create a full partnership account if they qualify.
Although the program extension will only be in the US initially it does mean that organisations here in the UK should be prepared to benefit from this as well. Obviously Google are doing this to increase their revenues but as YouTube is the second most used search engine after Google, yes ahead of Yahoo and Bing. (comScore, October 2008)
Most press releases are concentrating on the benefits to the individual but organisations both non profit and profit making can benefit from this by thinking differently about their advertising and how they are getting their message seen. A straight forward product advert may have less effect than a viral advert seen by millions which only places products or brands or even leaves a question hanging. Tying your own or partnership advertising in with this is certainly a cost effective way forward for many and then there is always a possibility of getting a share of any additional related advertising costs back from Google which seems like a good idea to me.
YouTube made their announcement in a blog post titled “In the future, everyone will monetise their 15 minutes” to read their blog click here.
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