Finally caving into the market forces, Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder, announced that the popular video sharing site will soon share revenue with its members.  While there are several video sharing sites that pay users for their video content, YouTube is the 800 lb. gorilla. As you probably recall, YouTube was purchased by Google for a whopping $1.65 Billion.

Who else is in the video sharing market pays you for your video?

MetaCafe’s Producer Rewards program pays you $5 for every 1,000 video views…but wait, there’s a catch.  You ONLY get paid if your video reaches 20,000 views.

Revver pays you 50% of their revenue from your shared video. Your payout comes after your balance reaches $20.

(If you know of any other ones, leave a comment and I’ll update this post)

Why did YouTube have to share their revenue?

As the web has become more and more “user-generated” and less “mass media” owned, web visitors have had an inherent interest in getting back some of the money that the website owner gets, since the website owner only makes money by virtue of the visitor.  If YouTube had not made this announcement, the balance of power would start tipping in favor of MetaCafe and Revver. 

This was not only a good marketing move on the part of YouTube, I believe it was very necessary for them to continue to “own” the video sharing market.

My main question is: How much will they be sharing?  If they aren’t sharing much, it is very likely users will be disgusted with YouTube and this will not be positive publicity for them.