[pic]By Natalie Robehmed | Forbes – 21 hours ago • • • 1 • Email • Print
To cash in online you need to be a game-changer. When Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook, there was nothing like it. He is now worth $17.5 billion according to recent Forbes valuations. Drew Houston saw money to be made in online storage, and co-founded Dropbox, the web-based tool that hit $240 million in revenue in 2011. Eric Lefkofsky spotted the potential in Groupon and gave $1 million to CEO and founder Andrew Mason. This year, Lefkofsky made the Forbes Billionaires list with a net worth of $2.9 billion. There are still fortunes to be made online, and we have found a few ways to do so.
YouTube has launched the career of many a musician, including Justin Bieber, the teen pop sensation who earned $108 million in the past two years. But have you heard of Karmin, the pop duo who signed a million dollar record deal after their Chris Brown "Look At Me Now" cover went viral? The duo, real-life couple Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan, hit it big when the video gained over 68 million views after its upload in April 2011, propelling Karmin to a million dollar deal with label heavyweight Epic Records just a month later. "Brokenhearted," the lead single from their debut album, has now gone platinum. [More from Forbes: 10 horrible reasons to get rich]
You do not have to be a singer to become a YouTube star. If you are lucky, you could shoot a video of your child, pet, or a double rainbow that strikes a chord and goes viral. YouTube might then get in touch asking you to become a partner, meaning the site will run ads along with your clip and share over 50% of the revenue with you. The father of "David After Dentist" has made more than $100,000 from YouTube ads alone. As well as advertising, viral video celebrities can diversify into TV appearances, merchandise and even iPhone apps, as the creator of "Charlie Bit My Finger" has done.
YouTube is not the