Dave Gee: Life from Right Field

The Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment (see post below for details) has become a worldwide phenomenom, generating over 5 million viewings since being posted online in late May.

But while there's plenty of copycat clips out there, you won't find the original on the likes of YouTube... Indie filmmakers Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe posted their video clip on Revver.com - a site which adds advertisements to the end of its web films.

Revver.com relies on viewers to click on those ads, bringing in money which is split 50/50 with the creaators of the video clips... 5 million viewers translates to a healthy $28,000 for the Coke and Mentos scientists.

YouTube claims it plays around 100 million videos a day... but creators don't receive any revenue for all those eyes. However they hold the lions share of the online video market, restricting the likes of Revver and Eefoof.com (another site offering to pay content creators) to niche players.

Another player that's been online for much longer is AtomFilms. It's been distributing short films since 1998, and claims to have paid out millions of dollars in royalties, with top filmmakers making making six figure sums. AtomFilms' revenue comes from banner ads, and from commercials inserted before film clips.

* InformationWeek: Internet Video
* Revver.com
* Eefoof.com
* AtomFilms