Google promotes Chrome with YouTube ads

Google is promoting its browser on YouTube.

(Credit: Google)

Well, now we know one customer who's excited by Google's new ad possibilities at YouTube: Google.

The company is showing ads for its open-source Web browser. I saw Chrome overlay and display ads on a classically viral video, "No Pants Subway Ride 2009." (Snow angels on a New York City sidewalk in your underwear? Does your mother know?)

Chrome ads also are appearing on Facebook's Boggle-like Scramble game.

Both of these venues have plenty of unsold, low-cost inventory, so Google probably isn't spending Super Bowl-level marketing money on them. On the other hand, they promote Chrome chiefly to the more technically plugged-in early adopter crowd who's most likely to already have heard of Chrome. But it's still probably not a bad idea, since many people, even the early-adopter crowd, still haven't tried Chrome or its newer incarnations.

Advertisements for Chrome appear on the Scramble game at Facebook.

(Credit: Facebook)

When Google launched Chrome in September the company also promoted the browser on some of the most prized real estate around, its own search home page.

Being able to promote Chrome essentially for free on YouTube illustrates both the power and ambition that Google has built up as it branched out from its search-engine roots. It also shows that the company is getting more hard-nosed about its business, no longer relying just on word of mouth to promote itself.

Chrome ads also indirectly showcase the fact that people can advertise on YouTube. Converting YouTube's popularity into revenue is a top priority at Google, and the company is claiming some progress if not actually big money.

"YouTube is emerging as a key component of our display strategy," said Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president of product management, in discussing Google's fourth-quarter earnings last week.

Added Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, "We have introduced three new video formats in the last four to five months...for advertising. Each of them is having some traction. It's fair to say that we've not found a single solution that really drives revenue widely, and we're certainly working on that."

[mikehill33]

Promoting it doesn't make it not suck nay less.

Still slower than firefox due to all the pre-fetch DNS lookup crapola.

[loose_screw]

I beg to differ. Firefox is SO slow on my PC!

[SamThornton]

Tried Chrome for a few weeks. While its speed was OK, it boggled on CSS and Javascript on some websites making them unreadable and lacks most of the features I've grown used to with Firefox. Color it not ready for prime time, promotions notwithstanding.

[kojacked]

I use it all of the time and find it faster than any browser I ever used. It works with most sites I browse but it does stumble on a few. It just feels like a well written app; fast, smooth, crash-free so far... I give it a thumbs up.

[TedAvery]

These ads have been running on YouTube for at least a month or two, I see them all the time. The overlays are quite distracting...

[t8]

I think Chrome is the best browser out there. It is fast and light and the layout gives more real estate for web sites. The only problem with it is that it doesn't enable all the features that come with the CMS part of Wordpress, so at that point I have to load up Firefox or IE.

[Vegaman_Dan]

I don't see how this is any different from a television network taking up the bottom 30-40% of the screen now to promote their own other shows, advertisers, etc. It's annoying as hell to not be able to see the screen fully, but that's what it is.

Somehow they never seem to feel it's important enough to put those bugs, crawls, and banners on top of the advertising commercials as well. Heh.

I wonder if they'll let Mozilla or Apple advertise their own browsers on YouTube as well?

[Gunady]

I have stopped using Firefox, and prefer Chrome instead, it's faster and lightweight. So, it's IE for work and Chrome for home.

[ThreeMilesNorth]

Do anybody else have the problem as mine: Safari crashing (quit unexpectedly) when using Yahoo! ???
I hate to admit, but Firefox is definitely slower than Safari, and also not as smooth as Safari (despite the crashes).

When is Chrome for Mac coming out?

[AppleSuxLeo]

Must be a Mac problem. FF never crashes or locks up on Windows XP.

[merelogic]

Firefox has lots of plugins, that's one great thing about it but it starts dead slow. Chrome is pretty fast and its interface is plain awesome, but I hate the chrome snap messages, though they rarely pop up.

[alan_06]

I'll not be surpirsed if I see a news 'Youtube ads on Chrome browser' in near future. Google will find some way to display ads in Chrome browser itself (like in the menubar) to make some money :-)
Hard to believe a Google product without displaying ads.

[darrentan1985]

I'm using FF and Chrome at the same time. Some sites appear on Chrome faster and others on FF faster. So it's like complementing each other. Both work better than IE for me.