Why pay to see Web video when you can get paid to submit it?
That’s the sales pitch from Break.com, which is battling better-known rival YouTube for dominance of the user-generated vid arena.
A report in the "New York Post" says Break.com will announce today that it is upping payments – by as much as 100%, or fees of $400 to $2,000 -- to certain video uploaders.
What does this bode for the sector? Sheryl Draizen, senior vice president & general manager of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, offered Squawk Box some insights – and attempted a few predictions.
Draizen sees an ever-more intertwined relationship between content consumers and purveyors – and more and more, the two sides will be the same population.
She augurs that “online video could be as big as search,” a thought that no doubt delights management at Yahoo! and Microsoft’s MSN – and especially cheering to Eric Schmidt, chief executive at search-engine extraordinaire Google. The proud new proprietor of YouTube, Google just completed its $1.65 billion of the viral-video site.
Draizen points out that online ad revenues are expected to top $16 billion to $17 billion this year, but “at the end of the day,” it’ll be up to advertisers to make the call: to align or not to align themselves with the wilder new breed of content generation, or stick with the “professional” Internet producers such as CNBC, Forbes or The New York Times.