Today's Business Week has an article, which suggests that, YouTube is moving in the direction of revenue sharing model that “could” offer content creators the ability to generate cash. How that will look is still up for grabs and the article quoted Chad Hurley that such a program would go into effect.

“A YouTube spokesperson confirmed the plans Jan. 29, saying, "We are actively exploring a variety of ways to help the community to monetize content.” An announcement could come in a matter of months”.

Of course, unless you have created a Mentos ad or similar fare serious content creators are going to be hard pressed to generate sustained revenue from my perspective, this due to several factors.

-Difficulty in generating sufficient buzz against the hundreds of thousands of other content

-The life cycle for content is getting shorter by the day; this requires content creators to be churning out new content on a weekly basis, this may be fine for stupid videos however, serious content creators have a longer cycle time, which also requires more capital outlay.

While sites like Metacafe claim some producers have earned ten thousand dollars in a few months, this is likely the exception and could be hard to maintain over the long term, also are these serious projects?

The notion that Google is going to place ad content against “thousands of independently produced videos uploaded to its site” is no different then what Revver, Brightcove and other sites are already doing and will require people and not automated systems to check for proper copyright ownership.

Sure YouTube is the 800-pound gorilla and its viewership has captivated advertisers however, will that alone be sufficient to induce what companies are willing to pay in CPM rates?

At the end of the day, if ITV is about offering viewers compelling and diverse content as alternative to the processed food the media establishment has been churning out for years, Indie producers will need an established revenue stream where their content has maximum reach. Right now, I would place my money on companies like Akimbo and NeuLion for the short term.

Time will tell.