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.