Making a Buck Off Your Pet-Trick Videos

To Win Traffic From YouTube, New Web Sites Pay for Clips

In his spare time, Patrick Sell, a 31-year-old marketing analyst, enjoys shooting short videos of well-dressed women strolling along New York City streets, then posting them on the Web. He used to upload his productions -- about 180 to date -- on the video-sharing phenomenon YouTube, but now prefers a new service called Revver. The reason: Revver pays him.

Revver allows Mr. Sell to pocket a portion of the revenue the site takes in from ads it attaches to his clips -- an amount that now earns him about $15 a day. "My issue with YouTube is that even as the producer of the video, I can't get paid for it," says the self-styled video auteur, who asks the women for permission to film them and also posts his clips on Idonothingallday.com.

The explosive growth of Internet video is allowing people not only to find an audience for their amateur productions. Now they can actually earn money from them. San Diego-based Eefoof Inc., launched just over a week ago, shares 50% of its profits from text ads and banner ads with users who upload their own online video clips. Shares are distributed based on the number of hits a particular video receives. Recently launched Panjea.com, operated by Aware Media Inc., shares 50% of revenue from the ads appearing on profile pages to which users can upload their own video and audio files. Users can also sell their content via download at a price they set, in which case they earn 85% of the sale. In May, Blip Networks Inc.'s Blip.TV began giving members half of the ad revenue it earns from the still-photograph and video ads that users can have placed at the end of their videos. Revver affixes an ad frame to the end of a video clip and gives the users 50% of the revenue generated when the ad is clicked on, whether the video is accessed from a Web site, shared across instant-messaging services or emailed between friends.

Ze Frank has earned more than $5,000 through Revver by posting his stand-up comedy shows featuring rants on pop culture, stunts and dancing.

Clips featured on sites that are helping people earn money run from someone chugging soy sauce on eeFoof.com to a child wading in a paddling pool on Blip.TV. Oddball antics, typically involving pets, are also big moneymakers (relatively speaking) in this arena. Revver, which has 30,000 videos in its system, says some users have earned more than $10,000 through the service and that many have earned more than $1,000. Eefoof.com says that a video that racks up between two and three million hits, a megablockbuster in the online world, would earn several thousand dollars from the site.

Watching online video, from comedy skits to failed cooking experiments, is fast becoming a favorite Internet amusement. Nearly one-quarter of Internet users watch online video at least once a week, according to the Online Publishers Association. To date, video sites have typically relied on members' good will and boredom to stock up on inventory that is funny, fresh and contagious. Now new sites hope that dangling cash perks before video uploaders will help them win traffic from more established players like YouTube and Google Video while helping creators share in the success of these sites. Using an ad-sharing service doesn't prevent filmmakers from also posting their clips on YouTube. YouTube did not answer repeated requests for comment.

Allowing self-styled Internet film makers to eke out some dollars from their creations could help the new sites win traffic. But it is unclear whether aspiring filmmakers of the talent these services aim to attract will set their sites beyond YouTube's massive audience (the site attracted more than 13 million unique monthly visitors in June, according to comScore Networks Inc.) and turn to these new services for a little cash. Michael David Lynch, a 24-year-old independent filmmaker living in Los Angeles, uploaded some music videos and a promotion for his coming short science-fiction film "Burden" to Panjea.com to network with industry players, rather than to make money. "I am just trying to get my films out there," he says.

The new video services come at a time when more Internet companies have begun experimenting with paying consumers for visiting their sites and sharing information. It is a response to growing competition as a flurry of new start-ups chase growing advertising revenues. MyPickList.com, a shopping-related site for user-generated product reviews and recommendations, launched in June giving users a commission of 1% to 10% on purchases made through their lists in part to win viewers from existing players like Kaboodle that rely on users to contribute information without getting paid.

While sites like Revver have managed to attract the attention and dollars of big brands like DreamWorks and American Apparel, the market for online video advertising is undeveloped. Online video watching isn't yet entrenched enough to attract mass advertiser attention, says Todd Chanko, an analyst at market researcher Jupiter Research. That means that these sites may continue to tweak their models as they see how the market shapes up.

Posting to an online video site can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the service. Users upload their file through a field on the site or separate software they download to their computers. From there, the clip enters a queue where it is typically reviewed for objectionable content and copyrighted material.

Popular webtoon 'Dinosaurchestra' by animator Shawn Vulliez (known online as 'ALTF4') with music by Lemon Demon.

Users who want to earn money for their work may have to register for revenue-sharing programs separately. To take part in Panjea's ad-share program or store, users must register with their Social Security number. Eefoof.com signs people who select a field indicating that they are the original author of the video up for ad-sharing automatically. (The site also offers ad-sharing for posting photos and audio.) Most of the sites pay users through PayPal, the online payment service owned by eBay Inc., to reduce credit-card fees.

The services typically don't give the viewer much discretion in the types of advertisements -- whether text ads on the page or video ads that appear at the end of their film -- that will be associated with their work. In some cases, visitors must click on the online ad in order for the creator to get paid. Revver lets users indicate whether there are any types of ads they don't want associated with their clips in a comment field.

By helping independent media makers earn a buck, the new services argue that they can increase the quality of online video content. The prospect of being compensated for their efforts is already causing some amateur filmmakers to invest a little more in their movies. Steve Heffron, 45, a Webmaster in Sacramento, Calif., has posted some 20 clips to YouTube, mostly Japanese-style, anime-inspired video clips. But after discovering Eefoof.com last week, he and his friends have something bigger planned -- an anime-inspired feature with some live-action shots. "We are not just playing around anymore," he says. "With the possibility of being rich, we want everything to be perfect."

Write to Jessica E. Vascellaro at jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com

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