It's still early in the game. They're rolling out new revenue models all the time. This one seems to be doing well:
> > http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/04/09/youtube-launches-click-to-buy-in-eight-new-countries > > Credit Suisse analysts may have to revisit their estimate that YouTube will lose $470 million this year. The site has rolled out its Click-to-Buy program - which is intended to result in quite a lot of revenue-sharing - in eight new countries. Click-to-Buy's best success story<http://mashable.com/2009/01/22/youtube-boost-sales/> so far has probably been that of Monty Python. After the comedy troupe launched a YouTube channel with links to Amazon, sales of one DVD boxed set soared by about 23,000 percent. Not bad for content that's a couple of decades old, right? On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 10:09 PM, J. Rhett Aultman <[email protected]>wrote: > >> ads don't work with ephemeral content. > > > > Surely that's exactly where they do work? Most of the media we > > consume is ephemeral - TV, newspapers, online news, we see adverts > > alongside those things as they stream into our lives. On-demand > > video is largely different from that, isn't it? it's short and self- > > contained and chosen individually and unlike TV and news, it's not > > time-sensitive - it's actually less ephemeral. > > No; it's actually more ephemeral when you consider it from a position of > total impact. The overwhelming majority of YouTube videos reach tiny > numbers of viewers who consume it once. This bears no comparison to, say, > TV or newspapers, which reach much larger audiences. It also bears no > comparison to media where there are smaller audiences that accept repeat > exposure. Such media are ripe for targeted product placement. > > But most YouTube videos simply don't make good raw material for an ad. > The audience is small and not defined, the video will be seen once per > viewer (who may not even make it the majority of the way through), the > producer isn't available to exploit their relationship with the viewer to > endorse things...it's basically an advertising void. > > > But most of it - 97% apparently - is unmonetizable with advertising, > > because individual videos' viewing figures are too low - and maybe > > it's all too fragmented and uncategorizable, and perhaps advertisers > > are not prepared to see their adverts up against every little home > > video and copyright-infringing clip. Even if those things eventually > > collectively gather millions of views and last for a lot longer than > > most ephemeral advertising-funded media. > > Again, consider "ephemeral" from a standpoint of overall cultural staying > power, and not just from how long something is on a screen once, and > you'll see that the YouTube videos are culturally ephemeral. You actually > touch on that issue in your above paragraph. > > > According to Credit Suisse, YouTube seems to be making $50-100m from > > ads in videos, adjacent banners and sponsored videos. That's as good > > as they can do all year, and they have 40% of the total online video > > market worldwide, at a time when online video is booming? > > Right, and this is because they're monetizing wrong. Let's say that 40% > of the car market, in terms of cars on the road, was GM's, and GM was > found to be losing money badly. In reality, it's because GM loses $1 per > car they sell because they do everything wrong. Is it valid to ask if > cars as we know them will be viable? No. It's not that cars aren't > viable. It's that GM is doing it wrong. > > > Sure, online viewership is tiny compared to TV, but the gap between TV > > and online video advertising seems to be disproportionately large. > > This could have everything to do with a casual numbers game not showing > the real details. > > > Especially when you'd imagine that online video would provide greater > > opportunities for more targeted "addressable" advertising, supposedly > > the holy grail. > > Imagination isn't reality, though, and presupposition gets you nowhere. > If YouTube isn't doing this sufficiently, then they're losing money. > > > But the TV ad industry in the US alone is worth $80 billion, 60% of > > total advertising spend. Superbowl ads this year earned NBC over > > $200m - that alone is perhaps between 2 and 4 times as much as > > Google's making all year from YouTube video ads. > > Of course, it's distorting to use the SuperBowl in a good comparison here, > because it's well known that the SuperBowl is basically tulip season for > advertisers. People spend on those ads because they exist. It's similar > to how city after city hosts an Olympic Games but never profits on the > venture. > > That said, I understand where you're trying to go with this, but you keep > treating this as a problem with online video when, in fact, it's a problem > with YouTube. Your assumption is that, if YouTube can't do it, nobody > can. That itself only makes sense if you can prove that the only people > capable of doing it are YouTube and what supporting engineers Google gives > them. > > > Is online video really that unattractive to advertisers? How is that > > going to change? It seems to me that at the moment, short on-demand > > online videos are more attractive to the viewers than the advertisers, > > and therefore that viewers are likely to pay more for them directly > > than advertisers would. > > Again, it's not about online video. It's about different classes of video > requiring different monetization processes. A huge class of online video, > which I'd estimate as the overwhelming majority of YouTube videos, is > completely worthless at making money. > > As for why micropayments won't work, I'll defer that to Clay Shirky, who > said it far better than I ever could: > > http://www.shirky.com/writings/fame_vs_fortune.html > > > At the moment, they don't have to make the choice, because 40% of the > > market is being subsidized by Google at a cost of $500m. No other > > business could sustain that kind of loss. That's what I mean about it > > distorting the market. And if that subsidy disappeared tomorrow, > > surely something would have to pay for the huge costs of bandwidth and > > content in delivering all this video to people? Will that be > > advertising? Or pay per view? Judging by the stats so far, my money > > would be on pay per view, not advertising. > > My money would be on an option that you don't seem to consider-- that > YouTube would just end, and that people interested in delivering online > video would have to pay their own hosting. The end result will be that we > will still have the artists, producers, video bloggers, etc, but what > we'll lose is the endless archives of cellphone videos of someone's drunk > friend falling down or of some random person in London getting stoned and > lecturing everyone on history...then getting all the facts wrong. > > > But again, that's just a broad personal impression from very little > > knowledge or experience. I am just a layman. > > I'm just a layman, too, but I just trying to impress on you that there may > be more options out there than the handful you're bringing to the table. > To wit: > > * Online video can sometimes be monetized and sometimes not, just like > online text. > * YouTube has a model that doesn't maximize money over time. > * If Google doesn't want YouTube to be a loss leader, a possible outcome > is that YouTube will end but that online video, as a medium, will survive. > Plenty of good video already survives without YouTube. In fact, some of > the best and most ready-to-monetize content isn't on YouTube. > > -- > Rhett. > http://www.weatherlight.com > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
