By buying YouTube Google have created the groundwork for a content economy in video. They have an integrated micro-payments system, developed for adwords, which is perfectly adapted to incentivizing content providers large and small in posting their material on the website.

Content owners have had three concerns about the web:

a) how do I preserve my brand experience?

b) how do I stop piracy?

c) how do I get paid?

The brand experience question is still an open question in the era of social media. Shrewd brands realise that the pass has been sold on “controlling the brand experience”. In the age of search, the brand experience will be mediated, like it or not. Brands have to amplify and express their brand via their stakeholder groups (consumers and channel partners).

But b) and c) have been, or will be answered by the Google/YouTube alliance. The streaming format precludes piracy and the payments back-end offers a business model for nervous rights owners.