As YouTube’s corporate sale fetched billions without rewarding creators, former talent agent Steven Starr launched Revver in 2005 to share advertising revenue with video makers.
Steven Starr Brings Talent Agency Roots to Revver.com
When YouTube sold for $1.65 billion earlier this month, not a single dime went to the content creators who built its audience. That reality infuriated Steven Starr, a former talent agent and Bob Marley devotee who co-founded Revver.com in 2005. While YouTube founders pocketed hundreds of millions, Starr has taken a different approach by cutting checks directly to performers.
Starr is no stranger to managing prominent careers. During his three decades in the industry, he worked at the William Morris Agency representing actors and directors such as Ben Stiller, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ang Lee, and Tim Robbins. He also produced a 1991 film titled “Johnny Suede” that marked one of Brad Pitt’s early starring roles. Yet a late-1970s encounter with Bob Marley at the Orpheum Theater in Madison, Wisconsin, fundamentally shaped his view that artists and performers deserve fair financial compensation for their work.
Attracting Top Internet Creators Away From YouTube
By sharing advertising revenue with the makers of popular clips, Revver has begun shifting dynamics in the burgeoning sector of amateur web video. Only a month after moving out of beta, the site has drawn top clip producers away from competitors, including the creators behind the viral series “Lonelygirl15.”
The video series followed a 16-year-old girl living with religious parents before it was unmasked as a hoax covered by major outlets like The New York Times and CNN. Today, the project features 19-year-old actress Jessica Rose and regularly ranks among the most-watched clips across both YouTube and Revver. Cross-posting to Revver has finally allowed the small troupe of actors and producers to earn cash.
“Most of the top user-generated sites are finding that if they don’t compensate their content creators then they’re going to lose them.”
Miles Beckett, co-founder of Lonelygirl15
While Beckett declined to disclose exact earnings, other creators have seen immediate financial returns. The duo behind the widely popular video known as The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment
received $35,000 from Revver last July, with a sequel launching soon.
Industry Analysts Eye the Shift Toward Creator Compensation
Critics and competitors have questioned whether mostly profitless video-sharing sites can afford payouts, or if commercializing clips might sully the communal nature of the Web. Starr dismisses those objections entirely.
“Anybody who tells you that we can’t make money by sharing revenue with the creator is either naive or interested in keeping all of the gravy. What was proved by the YouTube sale is that creativity can be aggregated and sold for very large sums of money.”
Steven Starr, co-founder of Revver
Josh Martin, an analyst with the Yankee Group, noted that paying top video makers represents where the sector is headed
as platforms compete for the next generation of online talent.
