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YouTube: Share Videos and... Shop?

by Kaiser Hwang on October 9, 2008 at 02:42 PM


The term 'YouTube' has reached such pop culture saturation that even our grandparents know that it's a video site. But if the Google-owned video behemoth has its way, everyone and their mother (and father, sister, and brother) will soon spend as much time shopping on the site as they do watching videos.

In a partnership starting with Apple's iTunes Store and online retailer Amazon, YouTube will place conveniently located buttons to purchase, say, the song or videogame used in the music video or gameplay clip, respectively, that you are watching. The generated revenue will then be shared with the applicable retailer. It's unclear how YouTube will split the revenue-sharing with folks who post user-created content that utilizes said music, game, or other product in their videos, but given a possible three-way split between YouTube, the retailer, and the user, expect some pretty low margins.

We'll have to see how unobtrusive the actual implementation is, but given the amount of music videos and videogame clips found on YouTube, iTunes and Amazon are probably the two best retailers to partner with. A "Buy Now" button isn't too different from a standard Google ad besides being a bit more targeted, but hey, at least they're trying. What really has us concerned, though, is when and if companies start hiring shills to give glowing video "user reviews" of their products on the site (Yes, it will happen). [From: Mashable]

Tags: amazon, itunes, shopping, youtube

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