Got a YouTube Smash? Now You Can Share Ad Revenue

Think you’ve got the next “Chocolate Rain”—or any other recent viral video—in you? Well, now there’s a chance you could actually make money off of it, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. YouTube is rolling out a new Partnership Program that will offer one-off “monetization invitations” to sufficiently promising videos. Before now, only prolific posters—like the chipmunk-voiced Fred, for example—could snag such deals.

Videos will be chosen based on number of views, “virality,” and compliance with YouTube’s terms of service, says the company’s blog. Auteurs simply enable revenue sharing, and YouTube does the rest, selling advertising and tossing a share of the profits into the creator's Google AdSense account. One-hit-wonder “David After Dentist,” for example, has already made its creator more than $10,000. (More YouTube stories.)