Youtube Launches New Ads, VideoEgg Takes Notice

It really was only a matter of time. Youtube is launching new ads that appear IN the videos. Is this rubbing some users the wrong way? You bet.

Better than Preroll?

As online video gets so popular (and Youtube is the current king in the arena), more emphasis is going to shift to video advertising. Youtube, particularly, would be interested in video ads because so many of their videos appear outside of Youtube. Even on Youtube’s site, you don’t see any ads. One would think they’d use some Google ads on there, but they don’t (at least I’m not seeing them).
Given that video ads on Youtube has been on the horizon all along, the question was what format. Pre-roll ads (where the ad plays before the main video) are common, but tend to piss off viewers. Post roll isn’t as effective because they’ve already watched the content. So, Google decided to do something a little different with Youtube – trying to satisfy their viewers.

Embedded Video Ads

Their new format will slide in an ad from the bottom of the video about 10 seconds into the clip. It overlays right on top of the video. If you click on the ad, it will pause the video and show the advertisement. When you close the ad, the video will continue playing. Here is a video which demonstrates the new format.

Viewers Respond

Just looking at that one video, you can get a sense for the polarizing effect this has had on Youtube viewers. Such as:

whats the big deal. tiny ad and it disappeared.. compare that with the shit that yahoo makes you watch 40 secs between each vid. Google paid 1.6B for utube they should make some money of their investment

and

I gotta’ agree here. As if “Just a small percentage of viewing space” isn’t a big deal. It is a big deal. I don’t want ads invading the pleasure of viewing videos on youtube. It’s obtrusive and annoying.

VideoEgg Responds

VideoEgg is a competitor to Youtube, and they have responded by saying Youtube is copying their ad format. And check out the VideoEgg site to see that they have backed up that story with a HUGE kick in Youtube’s nads.

Take that, Youtube.

Will Youtube Share?

The question I have is whether Youtube will issue payments to publishers, similar to what they do for Adsense. I really think they should.