It’s hard to wrestle with Google. Now the company is tightening the “Gordian Knot” with its YouTube franchise to keep hot content creators from jumping ship to competitors like Facebook.
In this case, the Gordian Knot (a legend associated with Alexander the Great used as a metaphor for an intractable problem) is Google’s decision to make serious investments to boost the profiles of top talents. Google has owned YouTube since late 2006.
“The site expanded support to full-scale marketing and advertising campaigns, helping turn successful creators with large fan bases like Bethany Mota and Epic Rap Battles of History into household names,” noted MediaPost.
“We feel the time is right to make another important investment in our creators,” per Alex Carloss, head of YouTube Originals. “That’s why we’ve decided to fund new content from some of our top creators, helping them not only fulfill their creative ambitions, but also deliver new material to their millions of fans on YouTube.”
YouTube is expected to rake in $1.13 billion in revenue from video advertising this year. That’s a 39 percent increase from last year, per eMarketer forecasts.
Of course, the Google investment is a bulwark against interlopers that would love to siphon off as many attention-grabbing videos as possible. Facebook, Microsoft, and others have been making a concerted effort to ramp up premium digital video content.
“Yahoo and Amazon also have increased their efforts to produce original Web content through streaming live events or producing original pilots,” noted MediaPost. “In the past, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer laid out plans to bring high-end television-quality content to the site, hiring commentators like Katie Couric.”