While it’s easy for anyone to publish videos online these days, making money from them can be tough if you’re not an established name drawing in a large audience. That’s where Swedish startup VideofyMe aims to help out.
The Stockholm-based service has already signed up 42,000 independent bloggers in Sweden, allowing them to monetize through preroll ads inserted into every video they publish on the platform. Now the service has opened up worldwide, hoping to attract video bloggers from around the globe.
Essentially, this is a YouTube alternative that offers all its users a revenue share on ads – something YouTube only offers certain high-performing users by invitation – and some neat addtional features. Videos can be uploaded from the Web or via an iPhone app, with videos instantly pushed to Facebook and Twitter if you choose.
The browser-based video recorder has been designed with bloggers in mind, providing an built-in teleprompter, meaning that you can look slick and professional without having to remember what you wanted to say by heart. VideofyMe widgets and plugins are available for content management systems such as WordPress and Drupal.
With the vast majority of users in its native Sweden, VideofyMe is now expanding its reach. The startup says that its top Swedish users earn as much as $7000 from the service, and it is working to expand its ad coverage in major markets and to increase its number of ad-partners to offer bloggers higher rates over time and cover more markets. Meanwhile it is looking to get star bloggers from around the world signed up.
With easy-to-use, well thought out and good-looking Web and iPhone apps, VideofyMe is a useful video blogging service. If it can deliver good revenue rates to its users, it could carve out a niche for itself worldwide, as it already has in its home country,
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