One more item about Yahoo—apparently undaunted by the problems getting content for Current, YMG is going into another user-gen venture. From the NYT, word that Yahoo and Reuters are pairing up to showcase user-generated video and photos. Submissions to You Witness News will be reviewed by editors from Yahoo and Reuters; some will be included on pages with relevant news as already happens with pros. Contributions appear on Flickr or “a similar site for video.”
Business model: As is so often the case with these deals, it’s a non-rev deal unless Reuters creates a separate news service for the uploads; then, it would be a rev split. Users will not be paid for the Yahoo and Reuters placements but will get a payment for photos or videos distributed to Reuters clients, likely on a sliding scale depending on exclusivity, major event status, etc.
—Yahoo wants to increase the amount of user-gen content to include articles, local news high school sports but the resources aren’t there for editing.
—CNN and Google’s YouTube are among the competition as are local media outlets encouraging contributions.