YouTube Partners, the individuals or organizations who go that extra mile, are being rewarded by YouTube. Both in monetary terms and by being given actual prizes by the Google-owned video site.
YouTube Partners
It could be argued that YouTube Partners are now the lifeblood of the site. These are the channel owners who are producing original content deemed worthy of incorporating advertising against. The revenue is split between YouTube and the Partner.
YouTube Partners range from famous celebrities and musicians right through to amateurs at home creating content with their own video cameras or smartphones. What they all have in common is adding something to the site beyond another video of a cat acting stupid.
Partner Rewards
has started a Partner Rewards program. The 80 partners who have managed to rack up over 1 million subscribers to their channels have been given a golden YouTube ‘Play’ button along with a $500 B & H Photo giftcard to be used against the purchase of video recording equipment.
Those who have over 100,000 subscribers (1428 partners) will get the giftcard but not the golden ‘Play’ button. While the giftcards will no doubt prove useful for many of these partners I cannot see the likes of Katy Perry or Justin Bieber cashing theirs in.
Partner Earnings
What’s better than rewards such as those mentioned above? Cold hard cash, obviously. And according to Google the YouTube partners with lucrative channels are now raking it in.
During the second quarter earnings call recently, Google SVP and Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora, stated that thousands of YouTube partners are now making more than $100,000 every year. That would suggest all of those who received the rewards are in that earnings bracket.
Arora also declared that Google has successfully found a business model for YouTube, despite naysayers suggesting they never would. He said, “I think we can declare we found our model.” Unfortunately no revenue numbers were offered up as proof.
