Amazon trying to court youtubers?

[Sammael]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/10/11648158/amazon-video-direct-service

 

It looks like amazon is releasing a competing service to youtube called "amazon video direct."

 

https://videodirect.amazon.com/home/landing

 

The play seems to focus on giving more ways to earn revenue from their service than youtube.  From the article:

 

Quote

Amazon is offering a variety of ways for creators to earn money, including royalties through streaming by Prime members, and revenue sharing through rentals, purchases, subscriptions, and ad impressions.

Ads were mentioned in the article above and they stated content creators would get a cut of the ad revenue, I assume the cut will be larger than what youtube gives.

 

Linus Media Empire might be expanding even more now, youtube, vessel, and now potentially amazon video direct.

[CtW]

This will only ever serve as a secondary platform as it is behind a pay wall. Expect this to function similar to vessel.

[Sammael]

3 minutes ago, CtW said:

This will only ever serve as a secondary platform as it is behind a pay wall. Expect this to function similar to vessel.

 

They mentioned ad revenue in the story so I think it might be an open viewing platform where there is more of a mix of revenues from ads or prime memberships or direct sales generated from the clicks.   Actually, does youtube share any of the ad revenue with youtubers?  Or is the revenue given to them SOLELY based on clicks to buy content?  If they got  cut of the ad revenue, whether the person viewing bought or clicked something or not, that could really pad the bottom line.

[Misanthrope]

Yeah listen: have a decent DMCA policy that respects fair use and many big hitters will follow given the state of things. 

[Tech_Dreamer]

inb4 linus starting an amazon exclusive   #PayWall

[ThinkWithPortals]

Amazon trying to court YouTubers?

Courting, as in "to be involved with (someone) romantically, with the intention of marrying"?

[Lurick]

Just now, ThinkWithPortals said:

Amazon trying to court YouTubers?

Courting, as in "to be involved with (someone) romantically, with the intention of marrying"?

Corporations are people too you know, so why shouldn't Amazon have someone to love?

[ThinkWithPortals]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Corporations are people too you know, so why shouldn't Amazon have someone to love?

So is Google the unfaithful one who's involved with every other corporation one way or another?

[CtW]

1 hour ago, Sammael said:

 

They mentioned ad revenue in the story so I think it might be an open viewing platform where there is more of a mix of revenues from ads or prime memberships or direct sales generated from the clicks.   Actually, does youtube share any of the ad revenue with youtubers?  Or is the revenue given to them SOLELY based on clicks to buy content?  If they got  cut of the ad revenue, whether the person viewing bought or clicked something or not, that could really pad the bottom line.

Since Adsense was introduced, youtubers have been paid a portion of the ad revenue (55% i believe) on each view. Given that youtube's definition of a view has changed, channels with longer and more frequent videos, like let's play channels, have become more profitable, leading to an increase in that type of content.

[SansVarnic]

Imo this may be a good move for Amazon. Cant say for certain if it will be behind a paywall similar to vessel but it will open up more viable revenue for LMG if they decide to move into this as well. Linus has said in interviews he not opposed to expanding into other areas that would give him more coverage. 

Linus is after all in the video industry. 

I can see Amazon taking on YouTube directly with both advertised and pay venues like YouTube, Vessel and Twitch have set up.

 

I guess we will see. 

Curious as to what @LinusTech & @Slick take on this is. 

[Sammael]

3 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Imo this may be a good move for Amazon. Cant say for certain if it will be behind a paywall similar to vessel but it will open up more viable revenue for LMG if they decide to move into this as well. Linus has said in interviews he not opposed to expanding into other areas that would give him more coverage. 

Linus is after all in the video industry. 

I can see Amazon taking on YouTube directly with both advertised and pay venues like YouTube, Vessel and Twitch have set up.

 

I guess we will see. 

Curious as to what @LinusTech & @Slick take on this is. 

 

 

And this is why I call it Linus Media Empire, Linus is trying to play innocent with the "Group" title, but he wants to be the new darth sidius and take over the world.

 

[Sammael]

1 minute ago, huilun02 said:

Great but they have to consider the fact that end users want ease of access to be watching on Amazon frequently. 

 

How would they contend with Google's integration and server reach? 

 

Where I live in South East Asia we have cheap gigabit internet but Vessel still loads like arse. That on its own sufficient to put me off, let alone other issues and a sub fee? 

Amazon is behind amazon web services, I am pretty sure they are one of if not THE biggest web servers in the world.  They took on twitch and that actually made it kind of trivially easy to solve twitches distribution issues because of amazons scale.

 

As for integration, that remains to be seen, who knows if they will ever get the same reach.  I still think there is virtue in being one of the first major video platforms and that will carry youtube a long way for years if not decades to come.  But that won't stop Linus from also jumping on the amazon train if it leads to more money and pink lambos.

[SansVarnic]

On 5/11/2016 at 8:54 PM, Sammael said:

 

 

And this is why I call it Linus Media Empire, Linus is trying to play innocent with the "Group" title, but he wants to be the new darth sidius and take over the world.

 

I have been in Linus' position before and even though he has said what he did, when opportunities come up via offers like this, sometimes it is hard to refuse especially if those offers allow him to expand his monetary profit so he can lower his overhead and/or increase his employee pay or higher on needed staff.

I think you are being a bit pessimistic about Linus' business plan, not saying I have any idea of what it is though just that if I was in his position I would attempt to make these calls with as much control being on my side of things as much as possible so the viewer has the advantage over the investor, in this case being Amazon or Youtube/Google.

[thekeemo]

Technically vessel is not behind a paywall.

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, thekeemo said:

Technically vessel is not behind a paywall.

Technically, it is.