YouTube are continuing to experiment with embedding
advertisements in videos after beginning to test adverts back in May. The ads are reportedly being sold for $20 per 1000 views and we are still left wondering about how YouTube will be working out its revenue share with video producers.
The
company has now begun to display overlaid advertisements,
shown inside a 20% sliver of real estate at the bottom of the video
window.
Steadily Growing Trial
The number of videos which bear advertisements at this point
is
limited, but it’s presumed that the trial will slowly but
steadily grow
to become a widespread presence on the website.
Google, the natural sole purveyor of advertising for YouTube,
has
been screening this new in-video format for some weeks, and the company
is only now letting it be known its plans for the expansion of the
system.
According to a
New York Times report
on the announcement, the company (Google) stated that:-
“after months of
testing various video advertising models, it was ready to introduce a
new type of video ad, which it said was unobtrusive and kept users in
control of what they saw.”
After seeing an ad or two myself in the format officially
debuted
today, I must say, “unobtrusive” is a term I think
I can agree to. The
standard size of a YouTube video window is small, without a
doubt.
There’s only so much space to fit content within,
and so
every pixel is
sort of, well, precious.
Google seems to understand that point well,
and has ensured that the new advertising scheme doesn’t
distract. At
least not more than it absolutely has to.
Unobtrusive Adverts
No annoying, flashing banners to be seen. Just relatively
simple
spots that appear roughly 15 seconds into the playback of a clip and
remain present (unless eliminated via the viewer’s input) for
about 10
seconds.
One would of course always opt for no ads,
particularly as
the average individual is bombarded by billboards big and small non-stop
throughout one’s journeys, whether in the physical world or
the
digital.
But because sites like YouTube are headed in the direction of
embedded advertising to ensure that video hosts themselves have
business models which enable them to stay afloat, it’s good
to see that
one of the largest in the industry has spent a considerable amount of
time trying to perfect the new method the best it can.
Changes will
undoubtedly come down the line, but as of this moment, I
can’t say the
embedded format is a terrible addition for YouTube to have put in
place. Only a very small percentage of YouTube’s viewership
will find
it unbearable.
As wonderful as it would be to make everyone happy,
Google, like any company, need only worry about keeping the great
majority of YouTube users satisfied, which I’m certain it
will manage
to do.
Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
