Comments on: Will Paying for User Video Pay Off?

By: NewTeeVee » CW’s Online Video Play: Viewsers

NewTeeVee » CW’s Online Video Play: Viewsers — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:51:39 +0000

[...] is offering a $25,000 prize on the next viral sensation, a bit of a different strategy from those employed by competitor sites like Revver, Metacafe, and [...]

By: craig chaucer

craig chaucer — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:58:16 +0000

http://www.infectiousvideos.com has a much better revenue share option in place where they give you 50 percent of the advertising revenue using your own adsense advertisements. The potential for income is much greater than a measly 400 bucks.

By: soxiam

soxiam — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 17:48:43 +0000

I think one of the big hurdles for rev-share model for popular UGC sites expanding outside the borders is that the logistics of payout become very complicated. It’s one thing to payout US contributers with valid tax id and credit card. It’s an entirely different scenario when you start thinking about paying out teenagers in Brazil or Chile.

By: Damian

Damian — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:28:05 +0000

These sites are all going to have the following problems:

The money to be made is in original content because mainstream content will be too expensive/low margin.
Anyone who gets successful on their network will be "attacked" by the other networks to get that content on their network.
Zero switching costs for either the producers or viewers means that they have no sustainable advantage.

YouTube was right to sellout - at least now they can be sure of broad distribution.

By: Isaac

Isaac — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:19:14 +0000

I have a fundamental issue with the notion that users are uploading content only to make money. A very small percentage of users will think about money when uploading their content. Most content is uploaded for bragging rights and fun. It’ll be more of a 95 – 5 rule where only 5% will do it for the money. I just hope there is enough content for all of these sites who clearly choose the same strategy to attract content.

By: Gerald Joseph

Gerald Joseph — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:46:49 +0000

I thought Web 2.0 was principally about User clustering and democratization.

Since the late 90's launch of Napster, we've seen Users flock to sites that offer services and incentives that are in their best interests, individually and collectively.

Any thing that empowers, rewards, and frees Users is a good thing.

Whether or not, these companies succeed is a question of burnrate or runway.

Will vSocial, KickApps, MyWaves, et. al. have enough money in the bank to offer Users incentives and pay the bills while allowing their new strategies to gain traction?

It will take each of these companies at least 18-24 months to gain any significant uptake.

It would be best if vSocial, KickApps, MyWaves, and a few others merged into one entity then merged with Facebook…then we would see the internet video competitive mayhem that everyone's looking for…

By: Sridhar

Sridhar — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 10:26:30 +0000

I don’t think any of these sites reward users for uploading just any video and not their personal creation.

By: Letlet

Letlet — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 10:15:53 +0000

The link for the above $4.2 Billion is wrong, and here is the correct one.

By: Letlet

Letlet — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 06:26:15 +0000

"…paying amateurs is a pretty easy way to attract attention, creators… and perhaps even the next big thing…"

Indeed, it seems like the Internet is getting more and more "fair" to its users. Starting paying to content creators and distributing the $4.2 Billion of the advertising market (http://www.iab.net/news/pr200611_14.asp) between the people that put the the content up there sounds right and makes sense.

Paying for user video is just a small part of a trend to pay for all user content. Places such as Triond and Associated Content give an answer to what seems to be an emerging need of the Internet population.

Just one last thing, I also agree that "adding and/or bumping up bounties" seems desperate, and taking a model other than rev-share is not going to work in the long run.