In addition to hogging bandwidth and flooding your inbox with useless links, what if viral videos could actually make money for their creators?

Such a scenario is not that far-fetched. A new company launched this week out in Los Angeles; it’s called Revver and it aims to give video producers a way to profit from their creations.

Co-founded by Freenet developer Ian Clarke, Revver works kind of like Flickr in that it allows users to post their videos online and make them searchable via keyword tags. However, Revver also inserts a code into the video that shows a small ad every time it’s viewed, regardless of how the video is distributed.

According to this article on CNET it’s all part of a movement to allow individuals to cash in on their creative endeavors. Says Revver co-founder Stephen Starr:

“The thought is to make it possible for creators who are unpaid online to be able to benefit from their work.”

Sounds fair, though there is a lot of ad revenue potential for Revver (after all, they’re not saints). The user data hook is huge – Revver can keep track of download stats, see when the videos are viewed, where they’re distributed, etc. They can then update the ads in real time according to user response.

Read more here in the San Mateo Daily Journal (shut up, it’s a good article) and in this piece in Google Blogoscoped.

And, just in case you’ve been living under a rock, watch two crazy Chinese students tell you why they want it ‘That Way’.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2005 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Search: Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.