Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 31, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The YouTube video platform is sharing its advertising revenue with users. In the USA and the United Kingdom, users can earn money by posting videos. YouTube operator Google passes on a share of the revenue generated through advertisements beside the videos or through in-video ads. An expansion of the so-called YouTube Partner Program to further countries is already being planned. “In Germany, in-video ads will be integrated into YouTube during the first half of 2008, on selected videos from partners,” Kay Oberbeck, spokesman for Google Austria, explains in conversation with the NEws service pressetext.de. This meant that Google shared advertising revenue only with those who also had an official partner agreement with the platform and operated their own channels.
There is to be no cash flow for just any users. “Ten hours of new video material are posted on YouTube every minute. Our aim is naturally to provide YouTube users with relevant information from an advertising point of view too. We must ensure that in-video ads relate thematically to the clips being viewed – and this is precisely what we can achieve with partner videos. With user videos, by contrast, in-video ads are not used,” Oberbeck adds. But participants in the YouTube Partner Program are also paid only if the user actively chooses to view the advertising on the video in question. It could not be stated specifically how large the share passed on by Google to its partners would be. According to Oberbeck, however, the majority of the advertising revenue generated is to be paid to the partner.
The more videos someone posts and the more popular they are, the more money can also be earned. In the USA, where the program has already been running for some time, some participants have already been able to earn thousands of dollars per month through video advertising, according to YouTube. Anyone prominent enough and achieving high click rates with their videos is admitted to the Partner Program; users with individual unnoticed contributions should expect nothing for the time being.
YouTube is not the only company passing part of its advertising revenue on to users. More and more social-networking sites and portals with user-generated content offer members the opportunity to earn money. According to experts, millions cannot yet be raked in by posting videos, photos or other content, but more and more people are nevertheless thinking about it. This is because the time users spend on such sites is increasing, and individual videos or their creators repeatedly achieve astonishing fame – solely through online portals as the distribution route.
