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Business News Digital
YouTube begins to roll out crowdfunding features
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 2 September 2014
YouTube’s crowdfunding features have gone live in Australia, Japan, Mexico and the US, Android Police reports.
As previously reported, the new features were announced in May this year, providing a ‘tip jar’ for users of the video platform to reward content creators they really like. Well, I suppose they don’t have to like them. Some people might get some sort of perverse joy from giving money to people they think are awful. Anyway, that’s not really important.
YouTube already allows content creators to earn money by showing advertising around their videos. Though, of course, not everyone is happy to have brands’ logos slapped all over their work, so this provides an alternative way for them to earn from their creations. Not everyone is going to be willing to shake a tip jar at their viewers either. But others might want to combine both monetisation options to maximise their income.
As with YouTube’s advertising, there will be different options for how the tip jar is shaken – some more subtle than others. The most low key seems to be an icon in the corner of a video indicating that the user accepts donations. Or you can go all out and have a pop-up that appears in front of a video and shouts it right in the user’s stupid face.
It’s not clear how quickly the new features will roll out to other territories. A request for confirmation did not immediately receive a response.
