Monetizing – with respect

How should YouTube monetize all that consumer-generated content?

Here’s a clever new way: With “transparent TV-style ads

And one that is much preferred to an annoying pre-roll.

The YouTube canvas is equal to the dimensions of the viewing screen (and, of course, the surrounding area – but banner and text ads are so old-school). They can do whatever they want with that canvas for advertisers, but it is important for them to respect their community of users – or that community will scatter elsewhere.

Does this challenge sound familiar, radio broadcasters?

Note the progression…When it comes to new media (or old media, for that matter):

1. Provide something of value 2. Gather a large number of users 3. Monetize with respect to the community you’ve gathered

For new media, we broadcasters we are placing too much emphasis on monetizing before we even begin to imagine #1. What would YouTube have become if they had to monetize that thing out of the box?

For traditional radio, we broadcasters are ignoring #3 altogether and skipping to an absent #4: “Meet budget no matter what the cost.”

This had better change. The goose can lay only so many golden eggs before she needs some TLC.