This ABC News article provides nice coverage of Revver and some of the other companies using an ad revenue sharing model in the user generated video space:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=3403460&page=1

It is interesting to see this more democratic revenue model emerge in contrast to the traditional model where content creators had to first prove significant value before receiving compensation. It remains to be seen how viable this model is in the long run as it certainly has its weaknesses.

Firstly, there is nothing the binds a successful content creator to remain with one of the revenue sharing platforms. Should a user’s content be deemed worthy by a media company, they could certainly move all distribution to the given media company’s platform. In this way UGV sites which share revenue with content creators take the risk of paying for a content creator to get their start in the business but not being able to cash in on more developed content.

On the other hand, it may be the case that catching a phenomenon early is enough to build a business on. The online UGV space is certainly very fickle and incentivizing users to upload content to given platform first through modest compensation could pay off. It would seem a risky bet, but then again, the media space has never been without its risks.