In a blog post, YouTube’s VP of product management, Ariel Bardin, explains FameBit offers a “democratised marketplace”, where content creators can connect with brands directly.
YouTube believes the acquisition, along with its own partnerships with creators and Google’s brand relationships, will help increase the number of branded content opportunities available. The move could potentially also bring more revenue into the online video community.
FameBit’s founders, David Kierzkowski and Agnes Kozera, wrote in an announcement that the platform was created to simplify influencer marketing, and make it easy for brands of any size, and budget to find and work with influential content creators. They indicate that so far, it has been used for 25 000 branded videos, generating over two billion minutes of watch time.
They added that FameBit will continue to work in the same way that it has and will remain a standalone operation for the time being.
The acquisition follows a handful of other upgrades to the
YouTube service. In early October, the company said it is working on an app that is
aimed at low-bandwidth environments. In September, it also introduced new
features for publishers and creators in Europe, allowing these organisations to use YouTube as a video hosting, streaming, and ads management platform.
Read the full YouTube blog post
here and FameBit’s announcement
here.