Think that video of you tormenting your cat with a stuffed mouse isn’t worth anything? Think again.
Video-sharing service Revver on Thursday said that in its first year of operation the company doled out $1 million to people who create and share videos through the site. The company earns revenue for itself and its users through in-video advertising.
The news comes at a time when Revver and rival sites YouTube and Metacafe are scrambling to find the best way to make money from popular user-generated content.
“It’s a competitive space,” Revver CEO Kevin Wells said.
YouTube has gone the route of now including overlay ads in video produced by its professional content partners. Google-owned YouTube chooses the partners who can get in on the deal. For now, it’s leaving ads off the user-generated content that makes up the bulk of the videos on the site.
Palo Alto, California-based Metacafe, pays the producers of the site’s highest-rated and most-viewed videos $5 for every thousand views after it reaches a threshold of 20,000 views. Metacafe leads all independent online video sites in viewership, with a self-reported audience of 25 million unique viewers per month. The site uses banners, pre- and post-roll ads, inscreen overlays, and branded partnerships to advertise through its videos.
Revver is unique in that it shares revenue with all of the amateur video producers who contribute to the site. Publishers, such as bloggers, who embed Revver videos on their sites take a 20 percent cut of the ad dollars and Revver splits the remaining amount with the producers.
Mr. Wells said the company sometimes varies that arrangement with different creators. The idea behind Revver is that there’s enough money to go around for everyone to take a slice of the profit pie.
“Smart advertisers are financing an online economy that supports these creators, and the top talent will build fortunes,” Revver founder and chairman Steven Starr said in a statement.
But to date, no extravagant bonanzas have been made on the site. Revver’s top-earning video has brought in just over $50,000. You may know it. It’s known as “The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment.”
But the Coke-Mentos explosion is a standout in more than one way, and only a handful of videos have broken the $10,000 mark. The company said it pays approximately 1,000 creators and video sharers each month. Overall it’s paid a total of 25,000 individuals.
It also remains to be to determined whether the Revver model can continue to scale. Currently, the company manages to keep offensive content, copyright infringing material, and pornography off the site through human vetting of each video.
Right now that results in a delay of minutes to approximately an hour between when a user uploads a video and users can access it, but if the site achieves the success it’s seeking, either the time lag or Revver’s staff size will have to grow.
Still, the ability of a company to reliably vouch for the content on its site is something rare in the world of user-generated content. And it’s likely to prove a plus for advertisers who remain wary of diluting their brands by having their ads run against potentially objectionable material.
But who—besides maybe Coca-Cola—would object to a carbonation-induced explosion?