YouTube the most popular video streaming website owned by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) has introduced a payment service for its viewers, who can use this service for making donations to the channel owners of YouTube.
“There are a handful of creators testing it out at the moment, and the plan is to bring this to more creators and countries in the future,” a YouTube spokesperson told TNW
Four countries covered
The service was introduced quietly by YouTube without creating any hype or making any announcements. The new service was first noticed by people at Android Police. This service is currently offered in only four nations; U.S., Australia, Japan and Mexico. Soon, the service will be extended to other nations as well.
The donations received by the channel owners cannot equal or surpass the revenue generated through advertising. Google Inc’s share is 5% and a marginal fee of $0.21 in the US. So, if the donation amount is $10, artist will directly get $9.29.Handling charges for any transaction made by the donor are deducted by YouTube, which varies from country to country.
Nice initiative from Google
Independent content creators spread all across the world post their videos on YouTube, who are then compensated by the internet company with the ads. However, the compensation is not sufficient to make off a living for the creators on numerous occasions. Hence, the company came up with the donations service. It was announced by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) earlier this summer that on their YouTube pages itself the producers will have an option of requesting donations from viewers.
The producer wishing to receive donations will have an icon displayed on the top left corner of the video. At times it can happen that a pop-up message appears on top of the video, when a particular item is clicked. If a user chooses to interact further with the message it leads to a window where the donor can decide how much money he or she wishes to donate. Funding by fans is accessible not only through the browser, but also using the YouTube android app. Google Wallet is used for processing the donations. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) is working to introduce the same service on other platforms as well.
