Nov 29, 2006 12:49 PM,

VZW bulks up user-generated video portal

By Kevin Fitchard

A day after announcing its breakthrough content deal with YouTube, Verizon Wireless has bulked up its fledgling user-generated video portal with a similar agreement with Revver, a viral video site that not only allows customers to post their own video files, but also shares any revenue they generate.

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Like its YouTube video content, Revver content will be available over Verizon’s V Cast 3G service in December, at know additional charge over the standard V Cast subscription fee of $15. But also like YouTube, Verizon Wireless isn’t giving its users full access to Revver content. Instead Revver is creating a series of regular channels, ranging from “Editor’s Picks” to “Animation” to “Cute Overdoes,” which Revver and Verizon Wireless will update twice a week. In the YouTube deal, Verizon Wireless will offer only the Web site’s most popular videos picked from among the thousands of media files posted daily.

The Revver deal, however, extends Revver’s shared revenue model to the wireless screen. On the fixed Internet, Revver splits ad revenues with its content creators 50-50. Though Verizon Wireless did not give any details on how revenues would be broken down, Revver said it would continue its precedence, splitting net revenues evenly between itself and its customers who have their videos shown over V Cast. Whether those net revenues will come from ads preceding the video clips or from a revenue share agreement based on V Cast subscription fees, Verizon Wireless did not say.