YouTube slowly building ad-friendly content
One of these days, Google is going to need to find a way to wring money out of YouTube, but at least it has a lot of room to grow.
If you're a glass half-full kind of person, then a report out Friday from Bernstein Research's Jeffrey Lindsay (as spotted by MediaMemo) should resonate. One of YouTube's main revenue-generating issues is that companies don't necessarily want to advertise next to videos of a fireman lighting himself on fire, or TMZ's bizarre interview of the Houston Rockets' Ron Artest, both among the most popular videos on YouTube at the moment.
But Lindsay believes that YouTube has been able to increase the number of videos suitable for advertising to around 9 percent of YouTube's inventory. That doesn't sound like much, but it's up from around 3 percent last year, according to MediaMemo, and could reach 15 percent next year.
The concern, of course, is that despite YouTube's enormous traffic--it's the single-largest part of Google's outbound bandwidth--upstart Hulu could have an edge with advertisers because of the quality of its content. That's part of the reason YouTube is involved in Vevo, a joint venture with Universal Music Group to create a standalone site for music videos.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
When watching a video on CNET, the ad appears in full screen before the requested video appears.
In my humble opinion, that is the best way ads should work, much like commercials on television.
Having an ad appear overlaying the video you are TRYING to watch is just as annoying as someone talking on their cell phone in the movie theatre -- it's downright rude!
"Depressed? take this test and find out if it really is depression."
Because, you know, liking guns is totally linked to depression. :P
- by Fistics May 11, 2009 3:35 AM PDT
- Yeah! Youtube changes... :((
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