Wall Street Journal Covers New “Pay for Content” Video Sites

Highlights from a recent Wall Street Journal article on the pay-for-content online video sites…

New Web Sites Pay for Clips
By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO
July 12, 2006

In his spare time, Patrick Sell, a 31-year-old marketing analyst, enjoys shooting short videos of well-dressed women strolling along New York City streets, then posting them on the Web. He used to upload his productions — about 180 to date — on the video-sharing phenomenon YouTube, but now prefers a new service called Revver. The reason: Revver pays him.

Revver allows Mr. Sell to pocket a portion of the revenue the site takes in from ads it attaches to his clips — an amount that now earns him about $15 a day. “My issue with YouTube is that even as the producer of the video, I can’t get paid for it,” says the self-styled video auteur, who asks the women for permission to film them and also posts his clips on Idonothingallday.com.

The explosive growth of Internet video is allowing people not only to find an audience for their amateur productions. Now they can actually earn money from them.

• San Diego-based Eefoof Inc., launched just over a week ago, shares 50% of its profits from text ads and banner ads with users who upload their own online video clips. Shares are distributed based on the number of hits a particular video receives.
• Recently launched Panjea.com, operated by Aware Media Inc., shares 50% of revenue from the ads appearing on profile pages to which users can upload their own video and audio files. Users can also sell their content via download at a price they set, in which case they earn 85% of the sale.
• In May, Blip Networks Inc.’s Blip.TV began giving members half of the ad revenue it earns from the still-photograph and video ads that users can have placed at the end of their videos. Revver affixes an ad frame to the end of a video clip and gives the users 50% of the revenue generated when the ad is clicked on, whether the video is accessed from a Web site, shared across instant-messaging services or emailed between friends.