Users with a chronic addiction to uploading videos on YouTube will rejoice in the news that the internet giant has announced its intentions to share revenue with users. Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, confirmed to the BBC that the company had put in motion monetisation plans which will be implemented in the next two months. In an attempt to promote original videos and creativity, only users who own the copyright for the uploaded material will benefit from the scheme.
The video sharing site was founded in February 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, formerly co-workers at Paypal. YouTube had a modest start, in a small office located between a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in California - similar to its parent company, Google, who started up in a garage before becoming the multi-billion enterprise it constitutes today.
In October 2006, the world reverberated with the news of YouTube's acquisition by Google for $1.65 billion. Today, over 70 million videos are downloaded each month, and Google Video is already showing integrated results with YouTube videos.
After recent lawsuits against both YouTube and Google for uploading copyrighted material, the companies have aimed to find and integrate suitable technologies that will be able to detect copyrighted videos in order to prevent publication. The kind of technology that will be used is as yet undisclosed, but it promises to facilitate a huge step ahead for the online video marketplace.
Those users uploading original videos on YouTube in the near future will be able to earn money as payment for their creativity. Other plans include merging videos with advertising campaigns, which will boost revenues for websites, advertisers and users alike.
A launch date has not been announced for this new development at YouTube headquarters; rather, the scheme will be adapted progressively over the next few months.
