How Google makes money off YouTube mobile

It should come as no surprise that content providers want to make money from YouTube, particularly on smartphones, which are among the hottest-selling gadgets on the planet. What you may find surprising is that once Google figured out a way to make that happen, namely by allowing advertising, viewership skyrocketed.

Users may hate ads, but media companies aren't as interested in putting videos online without them. And six months ago, Google began allowing in-stream YouTube advertisements to work within its mobile application. Google gives content providers the ability to opt out of putting their videos on mobile devices. But when the in-stream ad technology was launched, Vevo, one of YouTube's biggest content partners, was able to generate revenue from ads. As a result, Vevo began allowing its music videos to be viewed on phones.