ANTenna Blog -- Business & E-Business

Smart business leaders are always on the hunt for new ways to monetize assets. Now, there's an easy way to capture revenue from company-produced video -- that can be your advertising spots, your training sessions, heck even your elevator pitch.

The new, easy way to monetize that video looks oddly like a time-tested model: online advertising. YouTube has announced that it will split ad revenues with content creators for video advertising. Now before you cancel a slew of VC pitch meetings and turn down calls from angel investors, realize that part of the motivation for this program is Google inability to work its usual revenue magic with YouTube. According to AdAge, monetizing YouTube is the search leader's #1 goal for 2008, but the splashiest acquisition -- so far -- engineered by the Brin, Page, Schmidt troika has contributed barely more than 1 percent of Google's total revenue. But then again, if video is Google's #1 priority and you're creating video anyway, what have you got to lose?

Consider also that the online advertising is slowing, but even in there Google's search advertising continues to perform -- so maybe that's irrelevant.

Monetizing video you're already producing is well and good, but this is -- at best -- an ad-on revenue stream for smaller businesses. The big fish here is access to funding. On that front, small and midsize companies are at a distinct disadvantage. According to Richard Singer, CEO of RaiseCapital.com, only 13 percent of smaller businesses have access to multiple funding sources (though they generate 50 percent of national GDP). That puts these business in a vulnerable position and makes programs like TechCrunch and Vator.tv's elevator pitch outlets more important than ever.

And if you manage to sell some advertising along the way...even better.