Verizon and Revver “Sittin’ in a Tree”

by Nalts on February 23, 2007

log.jpgMicki from Revver announced in Revver’s blog that Verizon and Revver have deepened their relationship. Later this year, subscribers to FIOS TV (which is limited to certain regions) will be able to watch Revver videos from the comfort of their couch. They’ll be free to viewers, and Revver and the creator will evenly split an undisclosed percentage of the total ad revenue generated through this channel.

Typically Revver provides the distribution platform with 20% of the advertising revenue, leaving Revver and the creator 40% each. I would venture to guess that this deal offers a larger percentage to Verizon even if Revver is staying true to the 50/50 share with creators. For instance, if Verizon sells the ad space then it could expect Revver and the creator’s cut to be smaller.

This opens up a powerful new distribution channel for Revver, who has a generous business offering but very little traffic to Revver.com. Without these upstream/downstream partnerships, the creator must generate his or her own traffic. I’ve told Revver before that I’d happily settle for a smaller percentage of the revenue if they could drive the total advertising revenue higher via new distribution channels. They’ve been trying to broker these deals, but I suppose they’re not easy ones.

I truly hope that the larger media companies will syndicate consumer-generated content from Revver and similar entities. From my perspective as a content creator, it makes life much, much easier. I don’t have time to upload my videos to 12 sites. And from the “big media” perspective (be it Verizon, Sony, Comcast, Disney, networks) it provides fast and painfree access to gobs of user-generated content, and saves them the peril of pissing money away dissintermediating online players.

Thumbs up to Verizon for sticking to its core competencies. The Revvers, blip.tv, Veohs, Brightcoves and Metacafes are there to help.

P.S. Hey Verizon… You stinkers sent me a note saying I could get FIOS TV, and then retracted it a week later. Get in my neighborhood. I wanna watch Revver from my couch. My butt hurts.

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