YouTube gets click-to-buy feature

Google this week introduced a click-to-buy feature on its subsidiary YouTube, where users watching a video with a music track can click to buy the song from Apple's iTunes and amazon.com

The click-to-buy links are located on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features.

This development is part of Google's ongoing effort to test ways to monetize YouTube, which it paid $1.65 billion for two years ago.

Aaron Zamost, a spokesperson for Google, said the company is “happy with our progress so far” in making money off its YouTube unit.

“We continue to test new ideas to create marketing solutions for our users, partners and advertisers,” he said in an e-mail to DMNews. “Click-to-buy will help our partners generate revenue from their content on YouTube, in addition to the advertising we can serve against their videos via InVideo ads and other ad offerings.”

He said Google plans to “slowly but surely” add a click-to-buy feature for other media users may be watching on YouTube, including movies and television shows.