YouTube is launching something they’re calling the Merch Store. From it, the online video giant will sell all kinds of music paraphernalia like band merchandise, event tickets, digital music downloads, and even band meet-ups.

Just last week, YouTube owner, Google, announced some pretty impressive financial figures. Revenue was up 33 per cent, and third quarter earnings were up $2,7 billion. With three billion video views a day, this is big business.

The YouTube blog calmly stated it as it is:

With 800 million people per month coming to YouTube, you have a pretty big stage to share your music.

Whether you’re the main event, the opener or jamming from your living room, we want to give you the chance to find an audience and make music your career on YouTube.

The Merch Store, taking the form of an online shop, will be rolled out to all music partners globally over the coming weeks, but YouTube isn’t doing it alone.

iTunes and Amazon will control transactions for music downloads, SongKick will take care of tickets for concerts, and Topspin will deal with merchandise sales.

Larry Page, Google’s chief executive:

We have to make tough decisions about what to focus on, or we end up doing things that don’t have the impact that we strive for. Since we last spoke we’ve begun the process of shutting over 20 different products.

It’s not clear who is getting what revenue from the new deal split, but MySpace and Facebook wish they had thought of this.

[Source: YouTubeBlog]