YouTube Launches Click-To-Buy In Eight New Countries

Credit Suisse analysts may have to revisit their estimate that YouTube will lose $470 million this year.  The site has rolled out its Click-to-Buy program – which is intended to result in quite a lot of revenue-sharing – in eight new countries. 

Click-to-Buy’s best success story so far has probably been that of Monty Python.  After the comedy troupe launched a YouTube channel with links to Amazon, sales of one DVD boxed set soared by about 23,000 percent.  Not bad for content that’s a couple of decades old, right?

Now, the latest development is a little different – Click-to-Buy links have only been added to music videos – but the introduction of these links in Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, and Sweden is still a big deal.

On the YouTube Blog, Thai Tran noted, "A recent study found that after watching a music video on YouTube, 50% of adult users in the U.K. then go on to purchase music from that artist.  And we’ve seen these results for ourselves – three of the four major music labels are Click-to-Buy partners and are already selling millions of songs a year from these links on YouTube."

Tran also indicated that the program should expand some more in the months ahead.