Google ain’t no angel and they do, in fact, have to play by real world rules too. The “buzz” would suggest that only Yahoo! makes mistakes but that’s because the “buzz” doesn’t look any deeper. Earlier this week Google responded to complaints about customers receiving credits instead of refunds for their videos purchased through Google Checkout, which is being shut down. When told that their videos already purchased would no longer be visible in February of ’08 customers were not satisfied with credits to buy magazine subscriptions with. Bindu Reddy, Google’s video product manager, said “Our bad.”
So as Google is looking to actually make money from YouTube they are trying to figure out how. Getting mixed reviews, YouTube has launched a new in-video advertising opportunity for a select few companies on very specific videos. These 10 second clips will appear at the bottom of the video while it’s playing. Original testing indicated that 15 and 30 second clips had a 75% abandonment rate while these 10 second overlays experienced only 10% drop off.
Currently, no ads will appear in user-generated videos but YouTube has signed up 3,000 content providers already.
Will this new method be a stroke of genius (aka “pulling a Google”) or a huge flop (aka “pulling a Yahoo!”)?
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Hannah · August 24, 2007 at 9:44 am
When Buy.com launched BuyTV, it was a 2-platform show. There was the Buy.com version, accessible via a flash player on the website. And then there was the InstantMedia version, accessible only after downloading the InstantMedia Viewer (that takes a Herculean hard drive to run). While the Buy.com version of the show didn’t feature commercials, the Instant Media version ran commercials between every few segments. I always skipped them (except for the incredibly entertaining PSP ads that I just can’t resist).
The cool thing about the ads, however, was that viewers could click any commercial to go directly to that product on Buy.com’s website where they could learn more or make a purchase. I’m not sure if they are still using the same model since I no longer use the Instant Media viewer, but I do think targeted ads that enable viewers to buy or enroll right from an ad make sense within a video context.
Knowing Google, they will optimize this opportunity to integrate ads into videos in a viewer and consumer-friendly fashion.
Rachel Fransz · August 24, 2007 at 9:44 am
Advertising will always find a way. One day our home videos will have advertisements of starbucks and birds will fly all around us singing jingles for McDonalds. Just wait. You’ll see. Advertising is taking over the world! The food, the food will be laced with holographs of singing mascots. I cant take it any more… must… buy…stuff.