Google has announced plans to AdSense-up one-off viral video hits on YouTube:

Today we’re excited to announce that we’re extending the YouTube Partnership Program to include individual popular videos on our site. Now, when you upload a video to YouTube that accumulates lots of views, we may invite you to monetize that video and start earning revenue from it (see “Enable Revenue Sharing” in the screen capture).

To determine whether a particular video is eligible for monetization, we look at factors like the number of views, the video’s virality and compliance with the YouTube Terms of Service. If your video is eligible for monetization, you will receive an email and see an “Enable Revenue Sharing” message next to your video on the watch page, as well as in other places in your account:

Once you’ve chosen to enable revenue sharing, YouTube will sell advertising against your video and pay you a revenue share into your Google AdSense account each month.

Is Google Giving Up On Monetizing The Long Tail Of User-Generated Content?

Trying to make money from the wild west of user-generated video has been one of YouTube’s biggest challenges.

Google is moving its focus from monetizing all user-generated video to monetizing the tiny fraction of videos that actually generate a lot of views. This is good news for the rare Jill & Kevin (JK Wedding Entrance Dance), but suggests that Google is finding it impossible to monetize most user-generated YouTube content.