Sony Pictures is launching a new high quality video site to compete with the likes of YouTube and the hundreds of other such sites.  The new service will be dubbed Crackle (Its video and not cereal so the Rice Krispie guy won’t have to litigate on trademark infringement.)

The interesting thing about the site (high-quality video is not new but not prevalent) is the potential for YouTube era video producers to be potentially nominated for oscars for their work if Sony theatrically releases any of the works through Sony’s movie theater distribution.

Sony is hoping to real in advertising and sponsors for the works in addition to potentially theatrically releasing the video as products.  Many video producers today rely on advertising on their individual websites, or they sell advertising placements to be inserted in their videos at the beginning, middle or end. 

Some of the ads delivered by sites like Revver are clickable so someone that watches a video can click on the ad at the end of the video and go to an advertisers site.  So for example if you are an advertiser looking to advertise a new drug product like Phentermine you could conceivably put together a video clip to be placed in an existing video, or you could pay for a banner ad on the creator’s website. Its not yet known how Sony’s advertising scheme will run.

Sony Pictures launches online video network - Financial Times - MSNBC.com