What the Buck?!

Monetizing YouTube has been a "top company priority" for Google, as one initiative after another has been introduced to bait advertisers in hopes of making back the $1.6 billion it shelled out for the company in 2006.

But for some web video entrepreneurs, one particular program is paying them out.

YouTube rolled out its revenue-sharing Partner Program a year ago, hoping to not only avail more video inventory to advertisers, but motivate people to create valuable content and put effort into gaining an audience. The more eyeballs, the more money they'd get, and — as revenue from ads placed within and around the videos is split between both parties — the more YouTube would get.

Since then, some YouTube users have worked vigorously to build viewership and generate income. Michael Buckley, for example, armed himself with a $2,000 Canon camera, $6 fabric for a backdrop and a pair of work lights from Home Depot and started broadcasting a celebrity chatter show, writes New York Times.

Buckley's "What the Buck?!" rants attracted so many viewers — 100 million, to be exact — that he was able to quit his day job in September and live off his "YouTube salary."

YouTube didn't say how much money partners earn on average, but a spokesman admitted that "hundreds of YouTube partners are making thousands of dollars a month." With about 200,000 viewers for each episode, Buckley, for example, claims to make over $100,000 a year in ad revenue. Other internet personalities use a combination of YouTube's ads and sponsorships or product placements within the videos to maximize earnings.

Many use TV's model of narrative, episodic formats to keep viewers coming back week after week. But building the audience necessary for a six-figure income is difficult. Buckley spent a good 40 hours a week for over a year trying to do so, without seeing any encouraging returns.

What's more, competition is fierce: "Everybody's fighting to be seen online; you have to strategize and market yourself," noted video producer Lisa Donovan, known for her elaborate parodies and renditions of Gov. Sarah Palin.

Not all YouTube's partners are one-man comedy shows. Major media companies have jumped aboard in pursuit of new sources of revenue and additional brand exposure. Among these clients, music videos and webisodes are a well-known means of infiltrating online video sites. The most popular such producers (in terms of videos viewed) are Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, CBS, and Warner Brothers.

Despite the proliferation of enviable success stories, most of the content on YouTube remains unmonetized. Just 3% of the site's videos are ad-supported, mostly because it hesitates to put ads in a video without explicit permission from the owner.

To bypass some of the middle-man activity, YouTube gave users the ability to sell their own ad space on channels and videos. The do-it-yourself program was criticized for setting practically unreachable standards: producers must sell at a rate of $15 CPM and commit to at least $10,000 per campaign.

In other words, to qualify, a video must garner at least 666,667 impressions.