Verizon Wireless To Offer YouTube On Cell Phones

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Verizon Wireless said Tuesday it would deliver selected video clips from YouTube to cell phones starting in December in a bid to increase subscriptions to its mobile media service. By Reuters InformationWeek Nov 28, 2006 12:01 AM

NEW YORK - Verizon Wireless said Tuesday it would deliver selected video clips from YouTube to sector in media," said Robin Chan, marketing director at Verizon Wireless, who believes the deal could help increase its service revenue.
"Vcast subscribers tend to be higher-value customers in terms of ARPU (average revenue per user) versus traditional voice subscribers," Chan said.
Under the YouTube agreement, consumers who pay a $15 monthly fee for Vcast will be able to use their cell phones to view consumer-generated content posted on YouTube's Web site.
Chan also said customers would also be able to post videos from their phones to YouTube more easily than before by using a five-digit short code instead of an e-mail address.
Verizon said about 20 million of its customers have phones that could support Vcast. But only about 10 percent of these phone users have subscribed to Vcast, according to estimates from Ovum analyst Roger Entner.
YouTube said the pact with Verizon was exclusive for a short period. It did not say when it would be free to pursue additional deals with other wireless providers.
YouTube, which gets more than 100 million views of its videos a day, is exploring whether it can integrate YouTube into a variety of handheld devices with Internet connections.
"Mobile is just one of the things we're looking at," said YouTube's co-founder, Steve Chen. He did not give details.By: Sinead Carew and Yinka Adegoke
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