YouTube will its click-to-buy scheme, which links video pages to entertainment retail sites, to its European sites “within the next few months”. The video site announced the scheme in the US in October, adding iTunes and Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) links to videos from music owners like EMI and Amazon.com links to videos of EA’s Spore video game.
Asked which sites would win the European retail links, GooTube’s EMEA partnerships director Patrick Walker told C21’s FutureMedia conference: “Within every country, we will be working with the leaders in that space – it’s open to anyone.” That’s a come-and-get-me to the likes of 7digital, which already has a retail partnership with sites like Last.fm. Could Amazon’s continuing reluctance to commit a UK launch date for its MP3 store count against it on digital grounds – or could YouTube’s early-2009 click-to-buy launch suggest a similar timetable for Amazon MP3, too?
One British channel partner already benefiting from the US click-to-buy programme is Monty Python. The channel the comedy brand created last week brought a 6,800 percent traffic hike to its own Pythonline site in its first three days – but has seen DVD sales soar up Amazon.com’s DVD chart, Walker said, though we haven’t confirmed this: “The uptick was even before us putting the clickthrough Amazon.com links on. It was down to the humour of that video, the repartee, that led people to say, ‘I’m going to support them’. What we’re introducing now is, within the frame of the video, a small partially translucent will come up to say ‘buy this song or DVD or video’ to help support those businesses.”