YouTube who?

User-generated online video content is continuing to flourish, but will young people start to resent the fact that big sites such as YouTube are raking in the profits when they’re doing all the work? One company thinks so. Revver is a new site that’s similar to YouTube with one major difference: it shares revenue with users. Video creators receive 50% of ad revenue associated with any clips they upload, and any users who drive traffic (known as “affiliates”) to Revver clips receive 20% of ad revenue. In other words, people who “grab” videos directly from Revver and post them on their blog, MySpace profile or other networking site, IM window, or via email have the potential to make some serious profits.

Advertisers can specifically choose which videos they want to associate with (e.g. a skateboard brand can advertise exclusively on skateboarding videos or an online music store can advertise at the end of a music segment with a direct click-through to purchase the music) and can track traffic in real time, with details on referring sites, ranking of affiliates responsible for posting videos, click through rates, etc. Brands also have the opportunity to work with Revver to have users generate their own commercials.

Aside from the fact that the ability to make advertising contextually relevant could be invaluable to marketers, we expect young people to like this site that gives back to them when no one else does. Who knows how much money the Star Wars kid could be sitting on now had he originally posted his video to Revver?

HT: Trendcentral