Shane Greer of the Young Britons Foundation gives us his views on news that YouTube will offer a reward scheme to some of it's contributors. This stroy will form part of the debate on Sky.com News tonight at 7.30pm.
On the internet, content is king, and the individual is its master. To succeed all it takes is a computer, an internet connection, and a good idea.
Take political blogging for example. Iain Dale, who runs Iain Dale’s Diary, has a readership twice the size of New Statesman magazine.
Let’s put that in perspective – one man, with a laptop and something to say, attracts more readers than an entire team of journalists, backed up by marketing experts, advertisers, and a prominent position in almost every newsagent in the land.
That’s the internet in action, and that’s democracy in action.
News then that YouTube, one of the great platforms for individual expression on the internet, is to enable some British users to make money from their videos should be cause for celebration for all champions of individual expression (and the free market).
However, it’s probably cause for slightly more celebration amongst those film-makers who stand to gain under YouTube’s Partner Program (is alliteration ever a bad thing?).
There will of course be those who complain about corporate interference, about how big business exploits the individual and that this is (how exactly?) yet another example of that exploitation.
But then they don’t stand to make any money from this scheme, and are coincidentally the same individuals who complain any time anybody makes money. Either way, who cares?
The simple fact is this; YouTube was bought by Google in 2006 for £0.83bn ($1.65bn) and has around 129 million visitors each month.
What does that ultimately mean? It means YouTube makes Google quite a lot of money (they didn’t buy it out of charity after all), and that Google recognises that the money made from YouTube is due to the creativity of individuals with a computer and an internet connection.
That YouTube is to give some of those individuals a slice of the pie says a lot about it as a company, but it also says a lot about the power of the individual.
On the internet content is king, and YouTube is about to reward its master; rightfully so.
Sir
In all honesty the individual and corporate creative interactions go hand in hand, and realistically one benefits from the service offerings of the other and vice versa. Suffice to say that nothing is beyond the realms of ["Lets Get It On-Barry White"]. At the end of the day if greed comes between fun, wheres the fun?
Posted by: Khalid 31 Jan 2008 16:40:12