A big development in online video: YouTube is releasing a set of APIs that will allow its partners to customize YouTube players and functionality in their own sites at no cost. Users can upload video directly to partner sites, as well as comment on clips. Explains YouTube product manager Jim Patterson, “Any video that is uploaded through our API is treated exactly as on YouTube.com. In general if a video is uploaded to YouTube, in some cases we serve ads into that on YouTube.com. When people embed those we reserve rights to serve ads in the future.” The APIs are reserved for YouTube partners, which are already part of a revenue-share agreement.
Smart.


