Internet creators’ five minutes of fame may not be enough anymore.

Web sites like YouTube paved the way for unfettered access to free content whether its home-made videos, games or production quality shows.

But a funny thing happened along the way to democratizing the Internet: Visitors to the Web sites were quick to leave if the content was less than stellar.  Recognizing that, sites from Kongregate, to Revision3 to Wigix and even YouTube are sharing in the revenue they get from advertisers for content. They realize they can’t afford to create the content on their own and just throwing any old thing up on the site may backfire and drive away visitors.

“It's hard for Web site operators to predict what’s going to be a hit,” said James Slavet, a partner at Greylock Partners, which invested in Kongregate, a video-game site that employs a revenue-sharing model. “When a Web site structures deals upfront, it may be massively underpaying or over paying. If the deal is structured as a revenue share and the game or video ends up being a hit, the site and the content provider should both win.”

Kongregate, which posts video games created by developers on its Web site, pays anywhere from 25% to 50% of the revenue its gets from a game to the creator. Jim Greer, co-founder and chief executive at Kongregate said while a revenue-sharing model cuts into its profit, the benefits greatly outweigh the costs.

“You get the very best games out there,” said Greer, a former executive at Electronic Arts' (EA) Web game division Pogo. “At Pogo, there was a big fixed cost with the team (of developers) who were getting paid whether the game was good or not.” Greer noted that even Microsoft (MSFT) has been embracing this phenomenon by letting people develop games for the Xbox console for download.

While most of Kongregate’s developers aren’t making a boatload of money on the games, there are those few that have made $20,000 a month. Kongregate counts about 4.3 million monthly unique visitors.

“If you cut fair deals with content providers, that should enable you to get better access to content, and if you have better content, you attract more players, and more players builds more business,” said Greylock’s Slavet.  “It’s democratizing media.”

Kongregate is just one example of a Web site operator offering content creators a piece of its revenue pie. Wigix, an online-auction site pays people to create items in its online catalog, while Revision3, an Internet television station, shares revenue with the content creators.  Bob Lee, chief technology officer and co-founder of Wigix, said paying contributors to create items for its online catalog is all about resources. The site has one million items in its catalog and is aiming for two million by the end of the year. “We don’t have the wherewithal to build it ourselves,” said Lee in a recent interview.

But it’s not only the start-ups going after this. Last year Google's (GOOG) YouTube said it would start sharing revenue with its millions of users. It’s also happening in the cell-phone market. Apple Inc.’s (APPL) AppStore is one example of a mobile company that lets creators’ charger for their content.

“A lot of what’s driving traffic is good content,” said Robert Enderle, founder of market research company Enderle Group. “At the end of the day, the audience goes where the interesting content is.”

What’s more, Enderle said if both the content provider and the Web site operator have a stake in what’s created, the end result is typically better content. “It’s hard to find good stuff. Making it so it’s financially beneficial, people will aggressively create good stuff.”

At Revision3, the company has a staff of in-house employees creating content but also uses external content creators that get a certain percentage of the advertising revenue if there’s a large spike in traffic on that web show. Ron Richards, director of marketing and product management at Revision3, said that model ensures there’s quality to the company’s shows.

“We are different from YouTube in that we don’t allow anyone to upload,” said Richards. “Our success is from well produced productions not the kid in the bedroom dancing to some tech song.”