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YouTube will sell video games and music

by on08 October 2008

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New sources of revenue from e-commerce

YouTube has announced that it will begin selling video games, music and will even try new advertising formats to increase revenue. YouTube visitors will be able to purchase music from music videos seen on the Website by clicking on bottom that will link them to Amazon’s online MP3 store or Apple’s iTunes store.

YouTubers will also be able to purchase e-commerce items through Amazon’s link, including video games, films, books, concert tickets and other media-related products. When content is purchased through the link to these Websites, Amazon and iTunes will share this revenue with YouTube. YouTube is hugely popular, and claims it had 330 million visitors in August 2008. YouTube, purchased by Google for $1.65 billion in 2006, has previously earned its income from advertising sales.

Analysts predict that the YouTube site will earn approximately $200 million in revenue in 2009. YouTube is experimenting with InVideo advertising, a process that streams text ads at the bottom of videos while they are playing. They are also banking on its video ID system, which enables commercial content owners to know when copies of their video clips are uploaded to YouTube by users. The content owners could then potentially share in advertising generated around that copied clip.

Last modified on 08 October 2008
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