Fullscreen launches platform for monetizing YouTube videos

Fullscreen, a digital media company with one of the biggest channels on YouTube, has helped build followings for five-second films and a dubstep violinist, and now it’s doing more to help creative types make money.

The Culver City company, founded in 2011, Tuesday introduced a platform to help its video creators and brands manage their content and track their audiences. The collection of apps in its new offering gives users channel analytics, earnings reports and features to facilitate collaboration.

The advent of YouTube gave people who produce videos a free way to distribute their content, but little to help them monetize their creations, said Fullscreen founder and Chief Executive George Strompolos. He previously worked at YouTube for more than five years, where he helped create its partners program.

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“We see the creator platform as mission control where we can help them power their business,” he said. “We’ve really seen YouTube evolve as a fantastic platform for distribution. Billions of people use it every month, but such a small segment actually makes videos, and that’s where our focus lies.”

The new offering includes 15 new apps, including one that helps users optimize their video posts for YouTube’s and Google’s search engines, and another that helps users connect with other creators with similar audience demographics. That could help foster collaboration, Strompolos said.

The company has more than 15,000 channels with 200 million subscribers and gets some 2.5 billion views a month. Some of its better known clients include Devin Super Tramp, a stunt-loving filmmaker, and Lindsey Stirling, the dubstep violinist whose “Crystallize” video has amassed more than 65 million views.

“We want to turn amateurs into semi-professionals, semi-pros into pros, and pros into next-generation media brands,” said Strompolos.

Fullscreen also manages the YouTube presence of brands such as NBCUniversal and Ryan Seacrest Productions. Those brands could benefit from the creator platform’s analytics features, which help compare their performance with competitors’ and discover what’s trending.

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“The ability to track trending content across specific YouTube audiences is invaluable for the development of our content programs,” Katrina Craigwell, Digital Marketing at General Electric, said in a statement.

While its lineup of apps is growing, the company may eventually allow third-party developers to create apps for the platform, Strompolos said.

This month Fullscreen closed a round of Series A funding from entertainment heavyweights Chernin Group, Comcast Ventures and WPP Digital.

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ryan.faughnder@latimes.com