By Yoon Ja-young
Uploading videos on YouTube, a global video-sharing site, can be a money-making profession.
YouTube said Tuesday that it is offering private individuals a partnership program. Previously only large content providers like entertainment companies were allowed to earn money by attaching advertisements to their videos.
“It’s hard to believe but YouTube has existed for only six years,” said Adam Smith, head of YouTube Asia Pacific, in a video conference, Tuesday, pointing out YouTube has achieved huge success, marking over 3 billion video views every day, and 48 hours of videos uploaded every minute.
Following YouTube 1.0 which enabled users to upload and share videos, and YouTube 2.0 where lots of high quality contents such as those by entertainment companies were uploaded thanks to the content identification technology, Smith said that YouTube 3.0 has arrived ― now, users can enter YouTube anytime, anywhere, using any device.
For the new era of YouTube, it strengthened monetization options for users who upload quality contents to share with other users.
“YouTube partner program enables monetization, by placing ads next to their videos and sharing the revenue,” Smith said.
So far, businesses such as entertainment companies are included in the YouTube premium partnership program. YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment, the country’s three major entertainment firms, for instance, have signed up premium partnerships with YouTube, sharing the income from advertisements attached to their video contents available on YouTube.
In opening the partnership program to individual users, they can apply for the program, and YouTube will select partners after evaluating their video contents. Once chosen as partners, the individual users can make money through advertisement attached to their videos, just like the premium, entertainment firm partners.
YouTube said that individuals can expect to earn much profit through this program as YouTube has users around the world.
Advertisers come from the global market to place their advertisement on YouTube videos.
Smith said the contents shouldn’t violate copyrights. YouTube has a content identification program, which compares the new videos with the videos of partners. When the videos match, the partner can determine what to do with the new subsequent video uploaded by the user.
The video can be blocked, but the partner is more likely to monetize their copyright by placing advertisements on the new video as well. The content identification program enabled premium partners to trust YouTube.
“Korean companies have aggressively used YouTube to export their music. These videos are watched not just in Korea but everywhere around the world,” Smith said.
Advertisers are also positively evaluating the new advertising avenue. “They now rely on YouTube as effective ways to reach those audiences,” Smith said, citing the auto maker Hyundai which was a sponsor of the YouTube symphony Orchestra in Australia and Kia Motor’s famous nail art advertisements as examples.
According to a survey of 2,000 Internet users in the country, eight out of 10 said they were familiar with the YouTube site. Around 30 percent said they used YouTube to search for certain information, and over 20 percent said they check YouTube first when they look for a video. Around 30 percent said they talk about interesting YouTube videos with their friends, and 14 percent were using it on a mobile device.