YouTube Isn't Where the Money Is, Despite What You Might Have Read

It’s somewhat alarming, but not at all surprising, to see that yesterday’s New York Times’ story titled “YouTube Videos Pull In Real Money” has leaped to the top of the nytimes.com’s most emailed business stories. It focuses on one money-making producer of a celebrity gossip show who apparently makes six figures in annual income from his ad revenue split with YouTube. (His handiwork is above.)

But don’t go out and buy that $2000 Canon video camera and start uploading quite so fast. Scroll down a bit, and you’ll see a YouTube spokesperson saying, “hundreds of YouTube partners are making thousands of dollars a month.” Sounds good on the surface. However, considering the site had 100 million viewers in October, per comScore, to say that a mere “hundreds” of the uploading crowd are making money is actually pitiful.

The odds of becoming a full-time YouTube uploader are long for two reasons: first, the Internet’s long tail, which slices media into smaller and smaller content slivers, makes it impossible for most independent content creators to get enough critical mass to attract real advertising money. Second, as the story eventually points out, YouTube has yet to figure out a way to monetize its videos en masse; only about 3 percent of videos carry advertising.

So, if that story has you thinking about quitting your day job — if you still have one to quit, that is — better think twice.