Digital Journal — The online video-sharing industry just got more competitive with news that Google Video has begun sharing advertising revenue with a new popular clip.
“The Google” — as President George Bush likes to call it — has agreed to share most of the advertising revenue generated by the latest video from the brains behind the Mentos-Diet Coke experiments. The new clip is a sequel to the fountain-like artistry created by dumping Mentos candies into bottles of Diet Coke, sparking a soda geyser that soon became a viral-video sensation. The “Domino Effect” video features a chain reaction of 500 litres of Diet Coke and more than 1,500 Mentos candies, triggered by pulling one string on the first bottle.
More important than the video content, though, is what the sponsored clip means to YouTube and its successors. Inviting talent to share in ad revenue could change the face of online-video sites, turning amateur filmmakers into paid stars. Metacafe, one of the top video-sharing sites, is already turning heads with its “Producer Rewards” model: It will pay $5 to video creators for every 1,000 views their video receives. Already, one filmmaker on Metacafe.com has earned $23,000 US after his video was viewed more than four million times.
Google Video’s sponsored clip should make everyone take notice, from other video-sharing sites to the average user looking for cool vids. But there’s a danger lurking in this financial scheme: Choosing one filmmaker over another will create an elitism that the Web 2.0 model should avoid. That kind of snobbery might turn off users and creators, hurting Google Video’s street cred and bottom line. And if the first clip is any kind of litmus test, their choice of viral video isn’ stellar: The Coke-Mentos fountain is wearing a bit thin today.
It will be interesting to watch where revenue-sharing heads once Google Video and others start to regard creators as pseudo-staff. The trend could pave a new path for video sites or it could hamper the all-inclusive community vibe people enjoy. Stay tuned.
