YouTube As Art-House Cinema. Could There Be a Monetization Idea Here?
Advertising Age has a fascinating blog post about an art-house cinema in Amsterdam, called De Uitkijk, that is saving itself by screening YouTube clips (and other online clips of that ilk). It began as a promotional idea to help advertise the cinema, and it works like this: every month the movie house picks a theme for what it calls Upload Cinema, and fans submit clips online that fit that theme. De Uitkijk picks out the best and voila! Instant, one-of-a-kind programming! As , Wouter Boon, who wrote the post, says:
The reason why Upload Cinema is truly creative is that it merges two domains that theoretically lie miles apart from each other. The art-house domain, consisting of high-brow long-form content, worked for an educated crowd, on the one hand. And the internet domain, with its long tail of easily consumed short-form content, worked for anyone who accidentally stumbles upon it. Upload Cinema has brought the two together by joining the forces of the internet community and an editorial staff, thus producing an entirely new form of quality content.
His post also says that other art houses across the globe now want to pick the idea up. This idea makes me wonder if there’s something YouTube could do with this to, you know, make money, which it’s not that good at. Having humans do some aggregation of clips — and then packaging this pre-approved content for advertisers who are afraid of advertising on YouTube — is an idea that might have legs. Hey YouTubers! Maybe you should book a quick flight to Amsterdam and check this out. Remember you heard it at BNET Media (via Ad Age) first.
Previous coverage of YouTube at BNET Media:
Catharine P. Taylor has been covering digital media and advertising for almost 15 years and is a frequent speaker at conferences about media and advertising. She posts daily to BNET Media, writes the weekly Social Media Insider column for Mediapost and also has her own advertising blog, Adverganza.com. Follow her on Twitter or subscribe to the BNET Media Twitter feed.
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