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Google Launches First YouTube Ads

Posted by samzenpus on Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:47 AM
from the this-bread-brought-to-you-by dept.
Businesses Google The Internet IT
_14k4 writes "Video website YouTube is to feature advertising for the first time, after Google revealed it is offering companies the chance to run ads on some of the site's most popular content." I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
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  • cue the whiners... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trigun (685027) <evil&evilempire,ath,cx> on Wednesday August 22 2007, @11:49AM (#20319733)
    "I'll never view YouTube again"
    "Google isn't supposed to be evil!"
    "Way to ruin YouTube!"

    ad nauseum

  • Thank goodness! (Score:5, Funny)

    by BuCKsWorld (579831) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @11:53AM (#20319785)
    Thank goodness! I was starting to miss commercials when I watched shows on YouTube. Maybe Google can talk to all those BitTorrent guys about getting ads in those shows too. Hopefully it'll be very well targetted too, like luxury cars and tampons!



    -Chris
    • There will be targeted ads WHILE you watch. On the side of of viewing something.

      Like watching the new Showtime show "Californication"? Imagine a scene where the character Hank is having sex with some hottie and a condom ad pops up on the side like some bizarre Ad Sense clicky!

      This in itself may end illegal downloads forever! Or maybe not...

  • Did anyone really expect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ironwill96 (736883) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @11:55AM (#20319811) Homepage Journal
    them to spend 1.65 BILLION dollars on something if they didn't have a revenue source in mind? The existing business model of YouTube was...oh wait, there wasn't actually a business model unless selling to some bigger company counts.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by neoform (551705)
      Maybe not google, but others [wikipedia.org] have been that [wikipedia.org] stupid [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:Did anyone really expect (Score:5, Informative)

      by madsenj37 (612413) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:58PM (#20320679)
      Actually YouTube did have a business model. It was based on advertising, which is why Google bought it. In the beginning, the creators of YouTube ran up their credit card bills and did not have any advertising until they created a big user base. Then they advertised only with one company on the main page with special content to click on, this one advertiser found its way to other pages as well. Because they held out from selling ads for so long, they were able to create one advertising space that was highly desirable. Think supply not meeting demand. Although it was a strange business model for a startup, they did have one that started to pay their bills. Either they sucked at advertising, or they were so good you did not notice.

  • Evil yet? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by goldspider (445116) <ardrake79 AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday August 22 2007, @11:55AM (#20319815) Homepage
    How will Google try to prevent users from circumventing the ads? I don't think the "if" is even a question. And does this represent a move towards Evil(tm)?
    • How do you equate using video ads on a video site to generate revenue for an otherwise free service to be evil? I can think of much more evils than that (even relegating that terms use to describe the actions of corporations)
        • And this is evil because... ?

          In my opinion, it seems more 'evil' to freeload off a website providing a valuable service.

          Then again, I wrote this on Slashdot and my subscription here expired over a year ago.
  • I think YouTube is fantastic -- I can grab snippets of information that I'm interested in, plus also have the option to search for proam video from events that normally don't get broadcast in the MSM. I think YouTube should offer some sort of "revenue sharing" options, though. This would quickly destroy the MSM as pro-am or pro videographers and filmographers could find income for their ventures.

    I'd prefer to see YouTube offer a "subscriber" option -- pay $x/month or $x/GB transferred to skip ads of all sorts. Sure, you can block some ads, but the video inserts you can't. Flash Video is capable of skipping segments based on server-data, such as seeing if a person has a subscription and if they have free gigs left. I'd happily pay for my video snippets -- even moreso if part of my subscription went to the video author or "owner."

    One-way TV is too limiting -- either you get all a channel's offerings, or you don't get it at all. Some channels are starting to allow PPV on-demand, which is excellent, but I still have to get the full buffet of channels (Digital ones) to get PPV. I'd rather do an a la carte selection, honestly. In 2 years, the amount I'd save over having to maintain a decent media center PC would be worth it for me (considering my media center PC is probably worth $1500 and has to be upgraded every so often) for the limited TV we watch.

    YouTube has a huge opportunity here to offer snippets, full shows, and amateur content, while offering the viewer the option to pay up front, or watch ads rather than paying. Bandwidth and hosting ain't free, not even for Google, who can also handle fee distribution between their hosting office and the content "owner." This is a big step to also reduce the need for companies to monitor for copyright infringement, as it gives them the option to host their own stuff and make the pennies per hit.

    • Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kebes (861706) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:09PM (#20320011) Journal

      I think YouTube should offer some sort of "revenue sharing" options, though.
      YouTube already does this. It's called being a "YouTube partner." Most of the highly-subscribed channels are partners and get a bit of money from the views (Wikipedia info here [wikipedia.org] and official blog here [youtube.com]).

      I'd prefer to see YouTube offer a "subscriber" option -- pay $x/month or $x/GB transferred to skip ads of all sorts.
      I'm sure some users would take advantage of such an option. However my guess would be that most users (who frequent YouTube quite casually) wouldn't consider spending money on a YouTube subscription. So, ultimately, most of YouTube's revenue is not going to come from subscription programs. Similar to Slashdot: the subscriber option exists but it seems to be a minority who use it.

      YouTube has a huge opportunity here to offer snippets, full shows, and amateur content, while offering the viewer the option to pay up front, or watch ads rather than paying. Bandwidth and hosting ain't free, not even for Google, who can also handle fee distribution between their hosting office and the content "owner." This is a big step to also reduce the need for companies to monitor for copyright infringement, as it gives them the option to host their own stuff and make the pennies per hit.
      I agree that there is a huge opportunity here. Both amateurs and the big networks have the chance here to make serious money by posting content on YouTube. I don't think anyone has a big problem with ads, as long as they are reasonable (not too annoying, not too long, etc.). I'm hoping that YouTube understands how to implement ads (hint: reasonably unobtrusive, like Google ads, and not consistently bothersome, like TV ads).

      • Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices (Score:5, Funny)

        by CODiNE (27417) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @03:15PM (#20322233) Homepage
        Similar to Slashdot: the subscriber option exists but it seems to be a minority who use it.

        Yeah, one day Taco said to Hemos "Man if I had a nickel every time someone said 'FIRST POST' I'd ... . I'd .. heeeeeey..."

        It's the greatest troll of all time, running for years on end and the secret didn't get out til NOW. The trolls are PAYING for their first posts!! HAAAAH!!

        I suggest Google run a similar scam and charge $0.50 per first post. It's like a handicapped parking spot for trolls.

  • Sitting through commercials (Score:5, Informative)

    by reset_button (903303) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @11:56AM (#20319839)

    I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
    Did you RTFA before posting? (I know, I know, it's Slashdot...) From the article:

    The featured adverts are animated semi-transparent banners, or "overlays", that run along the bottom of the screen about 15 seconds into the video. They stay there for 10 seconds, allowing viewers to click on the overlay, which launches a deeper interactive video advert, while the main video is temporarily paused. Or viewers can ignore the overlay, and it will disappear.
    Seems to me like a pretty effective, yet not very obtrusive method for advertising.

    • Re:Sitting through commercials (Score:5, Informative)

      by _14k4 (5085) <sullivan,t&gmail,com> on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:03PM (#20319933)
      Actually, I did rtfa... that line "I can't wait to sit..." was not from my submission and added by the person who approved the article for the front page. But, you knew that already anyway.

      I agree with you - it is pretty effective and not very obtrusive... however, with the addition of "ipod/etc" download options on google video, and I would assume youtube, does this mean that if you dload a video for your ipod that it will have an advert in it?

      It is all flash based, so one could assume/hope not...
    • Did you RTFA before posting?

      Yeah, no kidding! I submitted the same story like four hours earlier [slashdot.org] with a correct summary:

      The New York Times (registration likely required) has a report [nytimes.com] on Google's plans to recoup its $1.65 billion investment in You Tube. Borrowing a move from television networks, Google will introduce advertising that overlays the bottom fifth of the video starting at the 15 second mark. Are they going to kill the goose that has so far laid a giant goose egg for their bottom line?

      There's just

    • Actually those kind of advertisements that appear on top of the real content are more obstrusive than the full commercials. I started to see those ads in Football matches some years ago. As it is not possible to break for 30 seconds ads during a football(soccer) match TV companies started adding those ads strips at the bottom of the image. They really suck because they prevent you from watching some part of the the content. They blatantly interfere with the actual content of the video.

      I find those a

  • Sounds good to me. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SocialEngineer (673690) <invertedpanda.gmail@com> on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:01PM (#20319905) Homepage

    No waiting to watch the video, and has some nice features to it. While I'm sure most people would say "BOO!" to advertising, Google has made itself known as someone who cares about targeted advertising. I myself have found a number of retailers through Google's contextual advertising which I have patronized.

    I guess most people have become disenfranchised with the dubious nature of national adverts for weight loss pills and whatnot, which is understandable. Publishing companies that allow such advertising into their products are doing their customers a disservice, as well as the industry. Look at what it has brought us - the necessity for ad blocking on the web, TiVO, etc.. Who knows if those of us in the publishing industry will ever be able to regain the trust of our consumers (I work in the newspaper industry).

  • Advertising Is The Internet (Score:3, Informative)

    by blunte (183182) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:02PM (#20319917)
    It should be obvious that most free websites exist just as advertising delivery vehicles. In fact, that's the foundation of the new web.

    Create a new free web architecture to hold user-submitted data, and stick ads on the site.

  • Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature (593017) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:05PM (#20319957) Journal

    Advertising to pay for everything. Offcourse in a way it does, youtube has been paid for by advertising already although the ads so far have been on other sites. In the end however it was Google that bought it and presumably paid those who had been paying for the massive amounts of bandwidth.

    Overlays on video off 10 seconds, 15 seconds after the video started, at the bottom of the screen.

    Mmm, what to say about that, something that sounds thoughtful, intresting and will garner me the praise of the internet.

    Oh I know:

    YUCK

    Do NOT want!

    I seen something like this before on a torrented becker episode, after commerical breaks (Fellow europeans, if you ever complained about ads in the EU, just watch an american show with the commericals left in. You will be hugging you commericial channels advertising staff before the show is out) it showed some ad that popped some weird cartoon dude up to sell something. God knows what it was for but taking up 50% of the screen was kinda annoying.

    While this may astound yanks, the bottom of the screen has its uses for subtitles. So basically subs are out while the ad plays?

    I can well understand googles desire to get some revenue going, I am currently watching old columbo eps on youtube all for free except my ISP fee and whatever google has to pay to upload several gigs of data.

    But I hate ads. It is not just that they get in the way, it is not just that 99% of them insult the intelligence of a republican, it is not that 99% of them are irrelevant to me (jay leno site shows me clips for american companies while I am in holland, even the best ad is not going to get me to fly to the US to buy something), that they cost me bandwidth, that the distract from what I want to do.

    It is ALL of the above.

    So good luck google, but remember one thing, you got big because people NO longer were prepared to put up with the crud laden, ad riddled sites of previous search engines. You wouldn't be the first dotcom to commit suicide by ad agency.

    Remember, youtube is handy to watch columbo eps, but a torrent wouldn't cost me that much more bandwidth, I would get them in higher res, better sounds and in one long segment. Perhaps google nows this, perhaps this is the end of youtube.

  • But I kinda agree with it. The ads aren't intrusive (you're watching VIDEO, right? We're accustomed to watch COMMERCIALS in VIDEO for ages), and they support the service. I wouldn't mind watching the next model of Gillette Aftershave before watching my favorite clip.

    However, the ads shouldn't last longer than 5% of the video in question, even if they're little watermarks on the bottom right corner. And one more thing: The ads must NOT be part of the .flv!!! I want to be able to download them and not having to watch the commercial over and over and over.

    I guess we'll have to wait to see how things go.

  • Spend Free Time... aka TV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xtracto (837672) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:11PM (#20320033) Journal
    I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.

    You already did that. That is what TV is all about isn't it? killing some time while watching soups, "news" or cartoons. The only difference is that ... mmm ... well, I guess there is no difference at all form the viewer point of view. The only difference from the "content provider" point of view is that I guess the guys showing the "my neighbour falling LOLZ!" video won't get a penny for the ads embeded in their video...

    I remeber signing in in YouTube like page which actually payed you for each click a page with your video or picture generated... something similar would be fair in the case of video advertisment dont you think?
  • Isn't the most obvious offshoot of this that people will parody the new ads. Then those parodies will become popular. The result will be companies paying for an ad that will be immediately followed by a lampoon of that same ad. Will Google be sink into true evil and allow companies to decide that their commercial won't be run next to a spoof of their commercial.

    From a spoof-production point of view this actually presents some interesting possibilities.

  • If they share the ad revenue, it could be good. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tinrobot (314936) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:44PM (#20320471)
    The article mentions something about "partnerships" and I assume that means the ad revenue will be shared.

    That could be good, because it means it's possible for someone who produces popular and engaging content to be rewarded financially without having to kiss the feet of big corporate media.

  • sans gel (Score:3, Insightful)

    by llZENll (545605) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:47PM (#20320529)
    Although their current idea doesn't sound terribly annoying (a small overlay at the bottom), a much better solution would be to just add text ads around the video. Forced ads don't gel with youtubes philosiphy of watching your choice of stuff in your free time, it would better match the sites flow if you were able to view ads at your choice as well, which text ads to the side would allow.

  • Just keep them small (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ohmypolarbear (774072) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:51PM (#20320579)

    This sounds like the ads that appear on the screen during a TV program. Hopefully they will stay small and unobtrusive, unlike what has happened with the TV version. A quick history of those, starting sometime in the 90's:

    • Small, often transparent network logo in the bottom corner of the screen
    • Static or scrolling single line of text with either a "this portion sponsored by:" message or a reminder of upcoming shows
    • Same text, but encased in prettier graphics that take up a little more screen real estate. Transitions smoothing the entrance of the graphics allow the eye to adjust and continue watching the show without being disturbed too much.
    • More lines of text added, perhaps with the rest of the evening's schedule. Also animations appear, but they're not very distracting.
    • LARGE graphics take up a significant portion of a corner of the screen, making it impossible to "squeeze" the tv show itself and preserve the whole scene. Visual information is lost and the show is negatively impacted.
    • More complex animations and graphics that aren't immediately recognizable as text boxes intrude farther into the picture and/or require significant viewer attention to determine whether the object that just appeared is part of the show or not.
    • Large, intricate animations with sound effects cause the loss of both visual and auditory information and cause the viewer to change the channel and/or shoot the tv. Sound effects? Seriously? What's the point of watching the show anymore when you can't see or hear what's going on?

    As long as the YouTube ads stay reasonably close to the top of this list, we'll be ok. It won't require too much effort to disregard the ads if we're not interested in them, and they probably won't obscure the videos themselves. If they creep towards the bottom, then people will stop using YouTube, at least for content from the "partners" that allow ads to be put in.

  • If I don't see advertisments... (Score:5, Funny)

    by shoolz (752000) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:56PM (#20320641) Homepage
    If I don't see advertisements, how will I know what I'm supposed to buy?

  • Take a look (Score:3, Insightful)

    by intx13 (808988) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @04:39PM (#20323071) Homepage
    Take a look at an example [youtube.com]

    My impressions:
    • Very unobtrusive - diverts the eye briefly as it appears, then is small enough to not bother you once you look back to the video.
    • No sound - very important! Nothing is more annoying than those new TV overlay ads that incorporate sound, especially when meaningful dialog is taking place.
    • It has an X button - I was worried about this one, but as soon as the ad appears you can click the "x" to make it vanish permanently. The "x" is easy to hit with the mouse, and since the video has just started 15 seconds previous, you haven't sat back in your chair to watch yet. Very easy to use.
    • Targetted ads are better than untargetted ads! The less bright-eyed white-clad models I see hopping around the screen waving tampons and telling me about whatever brand they happen to be using at the time the better.
    Also, the fact that the "x" button appears in the same place every time makes you wonder - how hard would it be to write a Firefox plugin that fakes a mouse click at the proper position 15 seconds into the video? Doesn't sound too tough, but that's not my field.

  • one significant problem (ie, the DMCA) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Triv (181010) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @06:48PM (#20324101) Journal
    I can see at least one significant problem with this.

    Let's say I upload something I don't control the copyright on, something like fansubbed anime. Let's assume it falls through youtube's copyright enforcement cracks and stays up, and youtube overlays an ad on top of it. YouTube is therefore generating a profit from copyrighted material they don't have the license to distribute. That's a helluva can of worms, wriggly legal ones, one that YouTube knows about - there aren't ads on the actual video pages for precisely that reason.

    Wonder how they're gonna get around that without losing their DMCA safeharbor provisions. S'gonna be interesting to watch.

    • Re:Commercials really bug me... (Score:5, Informative)

      by fimbulvetr (598306) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @11:56AM (#20319837)
      You should try RTFA. You don't need to sit through commercials before viewing the video you went to view. In fact, the overlayed 1/5th of the lower portion, commercial can be dismissed with one click.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Splab (574204)
        Yay, another thing I have to click on to get the video? Like when their stupid menu decides to minimize the showing video. I really really really HATE using my mouse, its the source of carpel tunnel syndrome and it pisses me off when a website forces me to shift to mouse.

        • Re:Commercials really bug me... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by eln (21727) * on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:12PM (#20320057) Homepage
          I don't know how to tell you this, but if you're complaining about using the mouse while browsing the web, you're fighting a losing battle. Yes, there are ways to navigate through websites without the mouse, but most of the time using the mouse is easier. With modern web design techniques, the mouse is becoming more essential to web browsing, not less so. Maybe you should invest in a nice mouse pad with a wrist rest, or perhaps a trackball.

    • don't misunderstand me, I understand the need to earn money on content, but when I try to watch a sequence on some American news site I have to sit through 30 secs of adds for some product not available to me from a company I have never heard of. The only result is I often close the page and move to next link on fark. Now google might be better at serving a commercial that is relevant, but I doubt it.

      EXACTLY my thoughts. If I'm sent a link to a news site, I'll figure out what the search terms for the story will be, then look it up on Youtube where I know I'll get the viddy without the addy. Youtube isn't the only video hosting site out there. If they make the ads obnoxious, they'll just drive traffic elsewhere.

      • Re:Commercials really bug me... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by SnowZero (92219) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:58PM (#20320669)
        I agree. It's not the ad that is annoying on some video sites, but the duration. NFL.com now runs 30 second ads, which is way too long to watch a 90 second video. If it were a 10 second ad, it could get most of the point across without being nearly as intrusive. One newspaper I used had the cool feature of running a ~10 second ad AFTER the video. That was not intrusive at all, yet they still get a lot of ad impressions from me, just because you usually aren't always *immediately *clicking to the next video. As for Google, their ads have tended to be pretty innocuous, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Then again, I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't disable non-animated banner ads, since I want to give the site a fair chance at paying for itself.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by srmalloy (263556)
      And we now have the webvideo equivalent of the 'upcoming program advertisement' that broadcast and cable TV channels have taken to overlaying on program content, so that even if you record the program and view it later with a tool to skip the commercials, you can't avoid the in-program advertisements that can take up a sixth of your screen in bright, distracting colors (and, in some cases, sounds).

      However, in this CNN article [cnn.com] on the subject, it says that "the video owner can decline all ads or selected ones

    • Re:Aghhh (Score:5, Informative)

      by Traxxas (20074) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:43PM (#20320457)
      Maybe someone should link an article [nytimes.com] with some real information about the ads:

      The ads, which appear 15 seconds after a user begins watching a video clip, take the form of an overlay on the bottom fifth of the screen, not unlike the tickers that display headlines during television news programs.
      This is a different kind of ad, just like Google changed ads on the internet they are changing commercials in video.

    • Re:Evil (Score:5, Funny)

      by Phisbut (761268) on Wednesday August 22 2007, @12:56PM (#20320647)

      I have always thought marketing and advertising are evil :/

      And there I thought Google made all its money from advertising all along... silly me.

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