17 sites for making money with online video

If you checked out my last article, (Best embedded video player), you’ll see some other video sites are trying to differentiate themselves from You Tube. Some of them are actually departing from the UGC model all together and moving more towards the Semi-Pro or Pro video submission model. Even in the last year since I really started investigating sites for our website MetroWize, I’ve seen the business models change on a few of the companies I’ve listed below. I think this list once again illustrates the fact that there is no one solution that's right for everybody. Enjoy the list and feel free to add to it.

Contests sites: Contest driven sites are really good if you catch a guy fly off his dirt bike mid-air, or a dog humping a passed out drunk guy. Hey, it gets me laughing, but it’s not the best place for the aspiring artist or touching documentary. Here are 4 that offer you the chance to win money.

Addicting Clips: They’re partnered with Atom Films and award $500 to videos they choose. The choosing of the best video is based on “our own mysterious whims”, so good luck to ya on that.

Break: You get paid $2000 if your video is shown on their home page, $25 if your photo is shown.

VidMax: Pretty much the same as Addicting Clips, $500 if your video gets chosen.

WeWin: These guys reward people for watching movies and uploading movies. You get more points for uploading movies, but it’s a twist on the typical contest format. Prizes are smaller, like Amazon Coupons and $10 items mostly.

Google Ad Words: A few sites out there slap Google Ad words near the videos you submit and then offer you a rev share for the trouble. Here are 3 to watch:

Flixya: The cool thing here is that you can pull your existing videos onto their site and then get a 50/50 rev share on the Ad Word clicks. On the other hand, if you have your own website, why not just run the Google ad words yourself and get 100% of the money? Well, the V2 (now in a limited Beta) will be giving 100% of the Ad revenue to the users. Maybe that will change the traffic levels too?

Blip.tv: At least this company give users a lot of cool features to work with on top of the Ad Words piece. They run a similar model to the other Ad Word players.

Vume: The website formerly known as Eefoof. Their offer seems similar to the others, they run ads on the sides, you get some cash. I didn't understand this site when it was eefoof, and it's only slightly better now.

Selling Your Content: For some companies this is still on the horizon. Others are actually doing it to varying degrees. I know there are many sites selling movies and professional production videos, but I’m not going there this post. This is about places you and me could actually sell our videos. Check out these 4 companies:

Turn Here: Originally this was a more open network, submit your video, it might get chosen, etc. Now, it’s more of a network of videographers matched up with a network of small businesses. If you think you shoot decent video and you’re in Miami, they will know of a pizza store in Miami and they’ll hook you guys up for a cut. It’s like Craigslist, but they take some of the money and Craigslist is free.

Veoh: These guys seem to have the resources to take on everything. They have all the features set up for video on demand but I’m not sure that they are running it a full capacity just yet.

HungryFlix: There will be hundreds of these sites popping up in the next year. Sign-Up, upload your video, charge money, the end. How-to videos are already becoming popular. Also, let’s just take it as a given that I’m leaving porn out of the whole VOD discussion here.

Brightcove: Tremor Media and Brightcove just got together to combined the Ad network with the publishing space. Within their sign up demo, they clearly show people uploading video for sale. Their back end admin features don’t seem to allow the sale of video yet, (or at least I couldn’t find people doing it), but I know it’s on the way. The big question will be whether people will pay for what they seem to be able to get for free.

Embedded Advertising: Pre-roll, Post-roll ads. Here are 3 sites putting ads in video for rev-share opportunities.

Revver: Revver offers 50/50 rev share split when you post your videos with them. Like the other sites that offer embedded ads, they are not focused on getting you crazy traffic. Instead, they kind of make that your job. Try uploading your favorite video you made to 10 sites on the web like Daily Motion, You Tube, Metacafe, etc., they will usually all beat out Revver. That said, it’s one of the most popular money making sites out there.

BrightRoll & AdBite: There are more than two websites offering you the opportunity to embed their ads into your video, but these two are pretty significant players. If you have the next million view video and a decent Blog, sign up for one of these sites, use their video player in your blog entry(Ad Brite has one, not sure about BrightRoll), and go build your financial fortune.

Others worth checking out:

Metacafe: There’s no Ads running on these videos. If you reach a 20,000 views and a decent audience rating, you start getting paid $5 on every 1,000 views (it’s retroactive too). There are a few people that have made good money on this site. Quite a few videos get declined for one reason or another, but you can tangibly see people cashing in. Best of all, Metacafe gets a lot of views, which means, unlike some of the smaller sites, 20,000 views is no problem for something good.

Google Video: I’ve heard lots of stories about their intentions. I remember hearing that users we’re going to be able to set their own viewing price at one point, but I don’t see that. Maybe somebody wants to comment on what Google Video has up it’s sleeve. Right now, nothing in the way of paying people.

ROO Media: Last Friday these guys pulled down another $25 million in funding to further extend their network of publishers and advertisers. If you have some decent content that you are cranking out on a regular basis, syndication is the way to go. Brightcove and ROO offer some pretty good packages if your recurring show finds a few homes on other high traffic websites.

Conclusions: 1) If you have a one-off one of a kind video and you’re looking to score big, I would go with MetaCafe or Revver. If it’s amazingly painful, sexy or immature, post it to the contest sites as well. 2) If you have a long term vision of consistently putting out short clips on a semi-regular basis, use BrightCove, ROO, or another syndicating/affiliate site. 3) If your site gets good traffic already, think about AdBrite. 4) If you want to sell your video, I’d hold out till Google gets around to it, or look into Turn Here.

Hope this uncovered a few sites you didn't already know about. If you can add to this list, please do.



Get your learn on! Local events, photos, ticket comps, videos and articles, delivered to you for free, every week! Get the Weekly Wize Guide!