I came across this article about a new startup company Revver. At first it sounded a bit suspicious but the concept is actually very interesting.

The Internet is buzzing with amateur videos, the kind that feature kids lip-synching or imitating Jedi knights. They get e-mailed and posted on Web sites and often become the topic of water cooler chat. But few, if any, make money.

A new company called Revver is trying to change that by attaching advertising to the videos and giving the creators a cut of the profits.

The technology, which also tracks the content as it is shared across the Web, is not limited to amateurs. Major media companies, which are just beginning to experiment with offering TV shows and movies online, are also looking for ways to distribute across peer-to-peer networks while avoiding piracy.

Basically you submit a video to their site and it then adds some advertising to the end, as well as some kind of tracker so they can see how widely it is distributed. The creator of the video then gets 50% of the profits from the advertising in the video.

As an example of the potential profit, Revver estimates that about 80 million people viewed the cartoon produced by JibJab Media of candidates George Bush and John Kerry singing a version of “This Land is Your Land” during last year’s presidential election.

If Revver had been able to sell advertising on that video at a rate of $8 per 1,000 viewings, it would have generated $640,000, half of which would have gone to the creators.

Very impressive earning potential, especially if the advertising is just attached to the end of the video and isn’t too obtrusive. One would hope that when you submitted the film to have the advertising attached you would specify what kind of video it was, subject matter etc, and relevant advertising would then be attached.