Google’s YouTube Enters Affiliate Market with Click-to-Buy Links

10/08/2008

Google’s YouTube, in collaboration with iTunes and Amazon, recently announced it will provide an integrated service to its users for purchasing and downloading music, video games, and other products with just a few clicks of the mouse.

According to a recent press release by the company, “This is a first step to building a broader eCommerce platform for content partners and users on YouTube.”YouTube, built on the fact that its users like to share information is now capitalizing on this. In addition to simply being able to forward, save as favorites, comment on and react to videos with a click of their mouse, users will now be able to buy those products, i.e., music, book and movies.

As with most high traffic sites like YouTube, the execs behind this move stress that their mission is to continually improve their visitor’s experience on the site. This, they believe, will allow visitors to become even more engaged and interconnected with the site.

How Will It Work

Via non-obtrusive links, users who are, for example, watching music videos of a favorite artist will be able to click thru to iTunes and Amazon and buy that music. Partners who utilize YouTube's content identification and management system will also be able to enable retail links on claimed content that they choose to leave on the site.

Why iTunes and Amazon

This is not rocket science. The iTunes Store is the most popular online store for music, TV and movies. It has an enormous catalog, encompassing 8.5 million songs, some 30,000 TV episodes and over 2,500 films.

Amazon was chosen for the exact same reason. Its digital music store has over 6 million DRM-free MP3 songs from all four major music labels. When coupled with the thousands of independent labels, it offers an impressive array of music.

YouTube eCommerce Platform Availability

This new integrated platform is currently only available in the United States. In the coming months, the program will be expanded internationally.

For more insight visit Affiliate Marketing Management Services