In a move that is not altogether unexpected, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley announced at today’s World Economic Forum in Switzerland that the wildly popular video sharing site will begin sharing revenues with users…
“We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users,” Hurley said. “So in the coming months we are going to be opening that up.”
Given that YouTube videos are now being included in search results on Google, this seems like a wise move to keep users and high traffic YouTube celebs (such as the beloved Shmuly Tennenhaus) happy.
YouTube competitors such as Revver or Mangnify.net already have revenue sharing programs in place, and have also emphasized the use of distributed video through widgets and on site video. YouTube also has its share of distributed video placements, but the amount of traffic hitting the YouTube homepage far outweighs that of its competitors…
Of course that is an Alexa based ranking with no inclusion of widgets and distributed placements of videos, but the graph serves to illustrate the point that YouTube gets much more traffic to its portal site than any of its competitors combined. How will the rev share platform affect Revver or Magnify.net?
Will users turn over control of their content provided at places like Revver to make more money from the amount of traffic that YouTube receives?
Is this a potential hint of imminent things to come with Google’s coming contextual video ads on its search pages?
