Google India announced the launch of the YouTube Partner Program in India yesterday evening at The Comedy Store. This programme will enable all YouTube users, who upload videos regularly, to become partners with YouTube and monetise their videos. The main aim of this programme is to share revenues with regular content creators. Once a video creator becomes a partner, advertisements will start appearing next to their videos. YouTube will then split the revenue generated by these ads with the partners.

Head of YouTube content operations, Asia Pacific, David Macdonald was present at the event and he said, "There is a strong demand for Indian content on YouTube, and this programme will help original video content creators in India to make money from their content. With our dedicated team in India and online support tutorials, anyone with a creative idea can use YouTube to build local and global audiences and turn those views into a regular revenue stream."

YouTube has a lot of individual users as partners already in India. Most of them include housewives who put up cooking videos, bloggers, beauty professionals or celebrities giving beauty tips, tech reviews and bands uploading their music. ‘Jay Hind TV' is a purely online based comedy show, which has uploaded nearly 250 episodes to their YouTube channel . Sumeet Raghvan, who we all know as Sahil from the famous Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai , is their main protagonist and was present at the event. The band of 'Jay Hind TV', Scrubbers, also performed for the audience. Other partners include Yoboho New Media Pvt Ltd and 1Takemedia.

There were performances by other YouTube partners as well. Singer Sona Mahapatra, who has made her singing career through You Tube said, "I did not want to get into ‘filmy' music and this was not possible in mainstream cinema. YouTube gave me the opportunity to display my talent, the way I wanted to. Be it in art, music or all other aspects in life, YouTube is an incredible platform for self expression and I also get access to some of the best creative expressions in the world. A lot of international collaborations have taken place for me due to my videos on YouTube."

Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Google India said, "YouTube is used immensely in India. Over the past years, the number of viewers on YouTube has doubled and they will continue to grow."

- Anjuri Nayar