Youtube Announces Ad Revenue Sharing

A story on the BBC says Youtube will introduce an ad revenue sharing system to users who upload videos onto the site. Sounds like a great idea, right? Or not.

 The system would be rolled out in a couple of months, he said, and use a mixture of adverts, including short clips shown ahead of the actual film.

So, before each video, you'll have to watch an advertisement? The beauty of Youtube is no ads before the clips. Most (if not all) other major video sites make you suffer through a commercial before the actual clip starts. Who is going to watch a bunch of random videos if you have to be inundated with commercials between each one? I think this could be a big mistake.

The good news is that, apparently, they will only be 3 seconds long:

The audience of the YouTube website will not have to put up with overly long "pre-roll" adverts. Mr Hurley said a clip of three seconds length was one of the options, although the details had not been worked out yet.

Add caching to that, waiting for it to load and you are up to 4 or 5 seconds. The internet is not that patient. Time will tell if this works or not.