Lulu.TV Enters Video Fray
Bob Young, who made his fortune from Red Hat, is moving into the video business with the creation of Lulu.TV - a video-sharing service with a twist: it offers a “pro” account in which it charges content creators $14.95 a month to submit their videos. Of that, 80% is put into a pool, which is split between “shareholders” based on how many times their video is seen each month. For example, if there are one million views, and one person's video receives 10,000 hits, they would get 1% of the pool.
In a press release, Lulu cites how a “once-struggling video-maker from Manchester” just got $3,966.17 for two videos, and how his success has led to a deal to shoot 10 comedy mobile movies. While Lulu.TV sounds, well, interesting, you have to wonder how many people are actually willing to cough up $14.95 a month for a shot at success - something the company describes as “get played, get paid”. It's like online gambling, and there is little evidence the growing army of online content creators is willing to pay for the privilege of sharing their material. Without dissing Lulu.TV too much, it strikes me as an opportunistic move by Young, who has a panache for marketing. If anything, Lulu.TV puts the focus on Lulu.com, which offers a self-publishing service for aspiring writers. No doubt, Young is aware of all the buzz surrounding video, and figures Lulu.TV is a no-risk way to get in the game and, at the same time, hopefully put Lulu.com in the spotlight. If Lulu.TV works, I'd eat my (red) socks.
Update: Another twist on video-sharing is CNN Exchange - a service that will let people submit their video, audio and stories to CNN. If you think about it, Lulu.TV and CNN Exchange show how companies want to capitalize on user-generated content, but at some point - and I think Lulu.TV is a sign of things to come - content creators are going to want to be compensated for their work. For example, if CNN Exchange gets a great video of a spectacular car accident that attracts millions of TV viewers, doesn't it make sense for the videographer to get some financial reward? Scott Karp has some thoughts on who will make money from user-generated video content.
