IP Democracy: YouTube Cuts Deal with Verizon Wireless

The rumors were true — meteroic video sharing site YouTube is hitting the mainstream under a deal with Verizon Wireless. The Google-owned company has a pact with the wireless giant to provide selected videos for Verizon Wireless’ broadband mobile service Vcast.

Verizon Wireless and YouTube will hand pick short videos that can be viewed on Vcast-enabled phones. For a monthly fee of $15, Vcast also provides customers with other video services, including news, sports, weather and games. YouTube will presumably be one of the menu options among this mix.

Clearly Google is moving quickly to leverage its $1.65 billion investment in YouTube. Kelly Liang, Senior Director of Business Development for YouTube, proclaims this “marquee” partnership to be the first of many. It’s a natural — Vcast videos are short, typically snippets, and YouTube’s specialty are short, typically amusing videos.

How much YouTube is getting out of the deal is unknown, although the company agreed to give Verizon Wireless an exclusive deal for some period of time. Verizon Wireless needs high profile content to push its premium Vcast service to more customers and may have been willing to give YouTube more just for the marketing boost the YouTube name will give the service.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 28, 2006 8:05 AM to IP Democracy