biased opinions » YouTube advertising

YouTube advertising

September 11, 2006 at · Filed under internet

youtube

i saw that dead 2.0 reported that youtube has started to put advertising on its site, so i went to check it out.

it was (still is last time i checked) a premium placement for an ESPN ad for their new Monday Night Football. The ad is not that good, but what pisses me off is that youtube did not put some sort of disclaimer to the users saying it is a paid advertisement (which also seems to be what the dead 2.0 guy didn't like).

i agree with fred wilson that believes youtube should use short video ads into the content. he also went into the trouble of putting together the excel sheet business model. i think users will be willing to accept this type of advertising, and i think the revenues should be shared with the video creators/uploaders.

i disagree with those who think that much of the youtube content will scare off advertisers. i think the tie between the ads and the content will most likely completely disappear, and it will be driven more by intelligent profiling of the end-user and search based targeting.

in any case one thing for sure. whenever the video content is an advertisement, the user should know it is the case.

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GorillaSushi said,

September 13, 2006 @

There’s also the hundreds of movie trailers and commercials that end up on YouTube. Whoever puts them there is giving companies free ads anyway, right?

I don’t like the idea of intro ads because when I put a YouTube video on my own blog I don’t want to have to worry about what I-in-turn am now advertising.

I personally think they would be better of staying away from video ads all together and stick to more conventional ad revenue options.

tsella said,

September 13, 2006 @

i agree with avner - flick ads are the way to go. about your concern GS, i think that the vast majority of youtube content is viewed on site and not externally, in which case its simple - show ads when referrer is youtube, don’t when its not.

otoh - youtube is still caughing up doe for storing and service those flicks we so happily post on our blogs - they deserve the right to place ads on the content, wether we like it or not.

avneron said,

September 13, 2006 @

i think it is fair for companies to post their ads to youtube.
for youtube to provide prominent placement and promote these videos, without disclosing that it is being paid to do so is dishonest in my opinion.

i think users will be willing to have youtube plug ads before their video plays if they get a piece of the revenues. or for users who are not willing to accept this model, a different model should be suggested. but youtube must come up with a business model to make money.

tsella said,

September 13, 2006 @

while i’d like to think rev sharing can happen, i can’t really think of anybody but google who has that model successfully working for him. i think operationally its a nightmare.