Movie Rentals Coming to YouTube
September 2, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
Right now, there are a ton of ways to rent a movie. You can head to Blockbuster, go to a RedBox kiosk, rent through your cable box — the list goes on. According to a report by the Associated Press, another option may be on the way. YouTube, the streaming online video service that is owned by Google, may soon add the option to rent movies.
For around $2 to $4 dollars, YouTube could allow you a totally online movie rental experience. Plans reportedly would allow customers full access to a movie for 24 hours for a set price. In addition to the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal has also discussed this possibility.
Considering that YouTube.com is very well known and has an absolutely huge user base, this venture into the movie rental business could be very lucrative. While YouTube hasn’t yet become a profitable business, this plan could push YouTube over the top.
If the prices are competitive, the biggest challenge YouTube would face would to be ensure the quality of the movie rental. Additionally, YouTube will have to convince those people who would rather watch a month on their television that their computer screen is a viable alternative.
YouTube Movie Rental (Image: Flickr)
This is exciting stuff to see how the flagship video sharing site plans to monetize online movies, definitely news to follow.
I work for a niche video sharing site called http://www.wejew.com and we have started our own monetization program for launching full length movies. Just this week, we have a special documentary movie dealing with a social/political issue in Israel http://www.wejew.com/hitnaari and next week we will be launching a special documentary film to coincide with the anniverary of 9/11 http://www.wejew.com/thethirdjihad
This is a totaly new field that we are all trying out to see what methods will be win-wins for the websites and the rights owners. But this is the future of digital media.