Brightcove and Revver, which focus on selling advertising on online video, are more explicit; they offer sites that carry the video 20 percent of the revenue. AOL, which has not introduced its similar program, also expects to pay sites about 20 percent.
In return for a share of the ad revenue, and a legal source of video, Web site owners will have to accept limitations under the new program. Viacom will have to approve each site that uses its content, and it wants only sites with at least 100,000 viewers a month. Initial sites include Hiphopgame.com, purevolume.com and Lyrics.com, all of which focus on music and videos.
Also, Viacom is making only three program options available for the sites: short excerpts from SpongeBob, a series of clips from its MTV drama Laguna Beach and clips related to the MTV Video Music Awards, which will be held on Aug. 31.
The site owner will be able to insert a version of the Google video player that will display these clips. But actual programming played will change from day to day, to encourage repeat viewing. As a result, Web site owners cannot link to a specific clip and write comments about it, as many do with clips on YouTube.
RSS