“Eventually we’d like to make money out of it.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt on YouTube

It’s been well over two years since the $1.65 billion acquisition and Google has yet to truly monetize YouTube. And while the company persists in claiming it has the “luxury of time” to develop the business model through which it will recoup its investment in the popular video site, it’s clear that time is running out. To wit, a report this week from Credit Suisse that predicts YouTube will earn $240 million in revenue in 2009. Which wouldn’t be half bad were it not for the fact that YouTube is on track to lose $470 million in 2009. The research house figures YouTube will rack up about $711 million in operating expenses this year–$360 million on bandwidth alone.

An unfortunate disparity, that. Is it one that can be corrected? Credit Suisse seems to think so. “In our view, the issue for YouTube going forward is to increase the percentage of its videos that can be monetized (likely through more deals with content companies) and to drive more advertiser demand through standardization of ad formats and improved ad effectiveness,” it explained in a research note. Of course, this is exactly what YouTube is doing. On Monday the company said it has agreed to an ad revenue-sharing partnership with Disney (DIS) that will see it putting ABC and ESPN videos on YouTube. A small first step, but one that could portend a trend. Especially, if as Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt says, the company hopes to eventually make money out of it.

For YouTube, which has been struggling to monetize the 330 million visitors coming its way each month, this may be the beginning of the business model that has so far eluded it. That said, the company is going to have to offer those visitors a bit more than grainy “MacGyver” reruns if it hopes to prevent them from turning to Hulu for premium long-form video content.

Eventually we’d like to make money out of it.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt on YouTube

It’s been two years since the $1.65 billion acquisition and Google (GOOG) has yet to truly monetize YouTube. And while Google CEO Eric Schmidt insists the company has the “luxury of time” as it searches for ways to recoup its investment in the popular video site, it’s clear the issue is gradually becoming more pressing. “We’re waiting for the innovations,” Schmidt said recently. “The innovation will come. We know it will come. We know it’s there.”

Could the “it” to which Schmidt refers be the new e-commerce platform YouTube is launching? Perhaps. Beginning this week, YouTube is embedding “click-to-buy” links in certain videos on its site, which refer users to affiliate services selling the music featured in them. “Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features,” YouTube explained in a post to the Official Google Blog. “Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products–like songs and video games–related to the content they’re watching on the site.”

An interesting idea. And should it prove successful, it could begin to justify YouTube’s jaw-dropping $1.65 billion purchase price. “This is just the beginning of building a broad, viable e-commerce platform for users and partners on YouTube,” the company explained. “Our vision is to help partners across all industries–from music, to film, to print, to TV–offer useful and relevant products to a large, yet targeted, audience, and generate additional revenue from their content on YouTube beyond the advertising we serve against their videos. And those partners who use our content identification and management system can also enable these links on user-generated content, by using Content ID to claim videos and choose to leave them up on the site.”