YouTube's Revenue Sharing Program Expands

YouTube announced that the revenue sharing program will extend to a bigger number of users. In May, YouTune added "several of the most popular and prolific original content creators from the YouTube community" to a partnership program. Now anyone from US and Canada can apply, assuming he meets these requirements:

* create original videos
* have the copyrights and distribution rights for all the uploaded content
* regularly upload videos
* have popular videos

The program is called YouTube partners because it offers the chance to become more than a user who uploads videos. "YouTube partners are independent video creators and media companies who are looking for online distribution and who meet our qualifications. Becoming a partner gives you the ability to share in ad revenue from your YouTube videos."

Other online video sites, like Metacafe or Revver, have less strict conditions and allow virtually anyone to earn money from a video that becomes popular.

"Metacafe will pay you $5 for every thousand views your video gets on our site. Payment starts after your video reaches 20,000 views and has a rating of 3.00 or higher - which tells us that the viewers like the video."

"When you upload your video to Revver, we attach an advertisement and our unique tracking technology to it. We call this "Revverizing." There are two ways that your video and the associated ad can generate revenue: from impressions/views of the ad (CPM ads), and from clicks on the ad (CPC ads). When a viewer sees a CPM ad associated with your video, you get paid, no click required. When a viewer clicks on a CPC ad associated with your video, you get paid. In both cases, Revver splits the revenue with you 50/50."

YouTube plays safe as it will approve all the members of the revenue sharing program. This way people won't make money from content that breaches copyright laws and YouTube won't be flooded with misleading videos that only want to attract views, but the program will be too limited to make a real difference.