Official Blog
Broadcast Yourself
Watch it on YouTube, then Click-to-Buy
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
We're happy when we can help YouTube users enjoy the content they love, and we're happy when we can help our partners build their businesses online – but we're happiest when we can do both.
That's why last year we
launched
our eCommerce platform for YouTube, which allows users to easily "click-to-buy" products -- like songs and movies -- related to the content they're watching on the site. The past few months have demonstrated that great content on YouTube leads to increased sales. For example, when Monty Python launched
their channel
in November, not only did their YouTube videos shoot to the top of the most viewed lists, but their DVDs also quickly climbed to No. 2 on Amazon's Movies & TV bestsellers list, with increased sales of 23,000 percent.
Today we're expanding the program beyond the US and the UK. Links to songs from the
iTunes Store
will now appear in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, so users from those countries who are drawn to a particular song can easily purchase it. And it's not limited to tracks on videos uploaded directly by our partners – partners can add these links to videos uploaded by users by using our our
Content ID
tools to claim videos that match their content.
We're also expanding and improving the ways in which these links are displayed. You may start to see click-to-buy links appearing as semi-transparent overlays that appear in the bottom of the video for a short period of time. This increased visibility should help even more people take advantage of this program.
As we said when we first launched click-to-buy links, this is just the beginning – over time, we're aiming to open up the program to cover many types of content beyond music. We've already experimented with links to purchase DVDs and video games, and we intend to experiment with links to additional types of products soon.
Happy shopping,
The YouTube Team
Labels
3D
4k
accessibility
account info
activism
ads
africa
annotations
arts
awards
benefit
betas
bizblog
blogs
bulletins
buzz
captions
celebrity playlists
channels
chrome
citizen journalism
citizen reporting
citizentube
comedy
comments
community
community guidelines
contests
creator's corner
creators
curators
customization
dance
design
discovery
doodle
editor
education
embeds
entertainment
events
facebook
film
flagging
gaming
gmail
google
google tv
government
grants
groups
guidelines
hd
help center
holidays
homepage
howto
inspiration
investment
jobs
journalism
life in a day
live stream
marketing
meetups
mobile
moderator
movies
music
musicians wanted
news
nonprofits
open-source
partners
playlists
policy
politics
privacy
product update
quicklist
ratings
rentals
research
safety
science and technology
screening room
search
sharing
shows
social networks
sports
staff
stats and data
store
subscriptions
tags
test tube
travel
trends
tv
twitter
upload
vevo
video editing
video production
video volunteers
viral video
youtube api
youtube direct
Archive
2017
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2016
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2006
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2005
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Feed
YouTube
on
Follow @youtube
Follow
Learn more in the
YouTube Help Center
.
Follow