Back in April, it was reported (link) that Youtube would be investing 100 million dollars into original content, and launching new channels to accommodate this. Friday they made the announcement a little more formal (link). As word is spreading, we’re hearing from some of the folks who are involved in the initiative. Aaron Simpson shared the news on Cold Hard Flash that Mondo Media, the company he does development work for, and the people behind online successes like Happy Tree Friends, Baman Piderman, Dick Figures, and more are one of the new partners.
It’s a great system they’ve set up. Imagine you’re the folks at YouTube. You make this announcement, and open the doors to pitches. The kind of man hours involved in reviewing the submissions would kill you, and basically bust the program in the process. However, by partnering with companies like Mondo, who already have development teams and a history of delivering popular content, YouTube relieves themselves of the burden of poring through the mounds of crap that would be coming through their door. So now you go pitch to Mondo or MyDamnChannel. There’s money to be spent, and if you have the content and are capable of delivering, this could be a unique opportunity.
There’s a list of channels here.
Frederator? Cool.
Stuffs gonna get made, kids. Take advantage,
Who owns the content? The creator, the channel or YouTube? Is there a standard contract or will everyone negotiate their own deal? Are deals for internet rights only, or for all rights? Are there royalties for ancillary markets?
I think that if you go by YouTubes guidelines then the entity that uploads the video must be the 100% owner of the content. I suspect that it may be a case by case situation. For instance Mondo may have a different deal setup than Frederator?
I am hoping that Google is taking some of their business model direction from the online games world. A portal like http://www.kongregate.com/ has absolutely no interest in owning any part of a game that you would upload to them. They buy it from you and you share in the potential profits based on a few models. Exclusive site lock for X amount of time, in game purchases and the like. It would be nice to see a profit share model come to “passive” content like it is in the “active” content market online.
Passive being something you watch while active being something you interact with.
I have high hopes for a shift in online content and I really hope that the indy developers get a chance to explore this. Not like Itunes where indy tv content is virtually locked out.
mark – feel free to email me to get more details on deal structure.
aaron@mondomedia.com
thanks for posting, mike! it’s a very exciting time. we’re already seen over 125 pitches!