Amazon introduced a new service this week called Amazon Video Direct, that allows people to post videos which they can then monetize. The company is offering various ways for publishers to earn money with their videos. They can either earn royalties from videos published for free, or put their videos up for sale and/or rental.
Where Amazon poses a threat to Google’s YouTube is in the payouts. Amazon Direct Video is allowing content creators to keep 50% of revenue generated from their videos. But will that be enough to attract YouTubers to Amazon’s new video platform?
Investors have confidence in Amazon Video Direct, which is evident in the fact that Amazon’s shares rose over 10 points today, making it the company’s best day in two months.
Variety reports that Amazon’s pitch to video creators is that they can get their videos seen by the millions of online shoppers, with flexible options for how to make money from those videos.
It’s an intriguing concept. Think about all the product-related videos that exist on YouTube right now. There’s unboxings, reviews, tips and tricks, and so on. If Amazon were to set it up so that videos from Amazon Video Direct are integrated into product pages, it could end up being quite lucrative for the video creators. Not to mention help Amazon sell more products. It’s a win-win.
On the other hand you have YouTube’s built in audience of over 2 billion users who help fund some of the top video creators in other ways such as: merchandise sales, Patreons, buying affiliate products, and more. When you compare the two against each other it’s difficult to tell which is more likely to attract the top video creators
The service is available as of today, and videos published to Amazon Video Direct will be available in the United States, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
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