YouTube Goes The Crowdfunding Way, Introduces Fan Funding
If you thought you had good ideas that you could share with people and make some money out of it, it’s become rather easy. YouTube, which has become the largest repository of informative and entertaining videos along with some rants and hurtful comments, now allows you to collect tips through the virtual tip jar.
This update is a great initiative from YouTube. Google has struggled with the great YouTube experiment as the website demands massive investments to run at optimum speeds but the revenue from the website has been low. The ads gradually became a menace and folks went with an Adblock solution which again harmed the websites revenue stream. Google will take a tiny 5% cut off each video that is an acceptable considering the huge platform they offer.
Youtube’s platform has been used by everyone, from prominent corporations to a blogger, sending out his thoughts from the bedroom. It surely has made a lot of people famous as well as wealthy. It did occasionally give undue attention to certain folks, but that’s what you from a completely free and open ecosystem.
Fan Funding is mutually beneficial for the content creator as well as the company
This initiative was announced at VidCon this year along with features like viewer translated videos. A YouTube user can translate the video and give it subtitles, and the owner has the authority to accept or decline the videos. It was seen that the viewership of the videos greatly increased when it was translated into multiple languages. This will let a channel attract a larger viewer base as well as help in a free and fair exchange of ideas throughout the world.
To make a contribution to a channel, a user must have a Google Wallet account. A support button will be added on the info card, or on the channel page, using which people can make the contributions.
Crowdfunding has been immensely successful in bringing ideas, films, prototype products and much more to the real world. These innovations would have had a tougher time seeing the light of the day if they had taken the tough route of impressing venture capitalists to fund their products. Using crowd-funding, consumers can invest in the projects they like and clearly make a consumer oriented market.
Currently, the service is available in U.S., Australia, Japan and Mexico and will be extended to other nations. To access the YouTube Fan Funding feature, users can use PC web browsers and the official YouTube Android app (version 5.7 or later).
