WHAT IF?
Google's plans to finally introduce video ads in YouTube videos have become one of the top discussed item on Techmeme this morning, led by the New York Times article on the subject. Here's how the latter describes the plans:
"The company said late Tuesday 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.
The ads, which appear 15 seconds after a user begins watching a video clip, take the form of an overlay on the bottom fifth of the screen, not unlike the tickers that display headlines during television news programs.
A user can ignore the overlay, which will disappear after about 10 seconds, or close it. But if the user clicks on it, the video they were watching will stop and a video ad will begin playing. Once the ad is over, or if a user clicks on a box to close it, the original video will resume playing from the point where it was stopped."
While this looks like an innovative balance between ads and user control, I think an additional feature would have been MUCH more in keeping with the spirit of YouTube.
And that would have been the ability for viewers to share their favorite video ads in much the way they share YouTube videos. Not to mention the ability to save favorite video ads, and embed them on their own blogs and websites.
Obviously this introduces a meaningful layer of complexity with advertisers and their agencies, many of whom would have issues with their advertising material being shared around the "internets" willy nilly.
But at the same time, it would really bring the power of Web 2.0 to advertising, in a very mainstream way. Call it user-distributed and user-sponsored advertising.
Perhaps one of Google/YouTube's competitors, or a startup may end up being the first with such a capability.
It's only a matter of time.
Comments