Written by Om Malik
Posted Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 8:35 AM PT

 

Online Video Ads: Work in Progress, says Google

Nevermind the millions of dollars invested by venture capitalists in the online video advertising companies. Google, the company that gave a bottom line to online video when it bought YouTube for $1.6 billion, thinks the business of online video advertising is a work in progress.

“We are still in the process of trying different things,” Susan Wojcicki, Google’s vice president of product management told a small gathering of journalists at company’s corporate headquarers in Mountain View, California on Tuesday.

It’s not clear pre-roll (before the clip) or post-roll (after the video clip) ads will work online. Google says it is experimenting with in-stream ads for now, but looking for new ideas.

The company is currently looking at different overlays or ways to put ads at the bottom of the video, banners around video, or or even simply opting for ads that are companion banners to the video clips, Wojcicki noted.

“There is going to be a lot of experimentation. We shall see how and where the market evolves to,” she said. Video creators are content owners looking for new ways to make money — clearly there is a need for an effective online video advertisng strategies. “The challenge is to make the ads useful, targeted.”

She pointed out that there is a good chance that video advertising will become more integrated with the content. Did someone say product placement! When I asked her if she thought longer-form video was going to help overcome some of the issues with online video advertising, she said that for now it is the short-form content is what people want to watch. Which means, from an online advertising perspective, we are back to square one.

Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the feed

Sphere
Topic: Money & Power

Comments (9)

  • The contextual problem with video is a huge one. I worked at a big media company for 4 years working on this particularly problem. Media companies have been having this problem for years – that is why there is so much content just sitting “in the vault” not being used.

    One common answer that we always found: it is the METADATA! This is very different from indexing a bunch of text b/c even the spoken word in video can be completely different than what the video is actually about.

    One reason (not the only one, of course) that i was so attracted to join Mefeedia as CEO – 3 years of metadata collected on thousands of contextualized video feeds.

    We have some great ideas around solving the contextualizing/targeting of video ads – will keep you updated as things progress.

    Frank Sinton — 9:23 AM on August 1, 2007 Reply

  • I understand the rush to monetize online video, but does it really have to happen in the video? I think people are far too easily concluding that video content cannot be monetized effectively with ads around the video. Pre-roll, post-roll… I believe these will always feel more intrusive. Is the embeddable nature of online video the main reason behind the push for in-video ads? But what about the other types of media are also being syndicated via RSS, newsletters, widgets, etc.? I think video should be looked at more as a way to drive traffic back to your site where conversion and monetization can take place. A mean, not an end.

    soxiam — 8:27 PM on August 1, 2007 Reply

  • The entire web experience is still completely new, not just video, and context will be a great challenge. Whatever solution Google comes up with I hope it is as pleasantly non-intrusive as their advertising on their search engine.

    Grant Czerepak — 8:26 AM on August 2, 2007 Reply

  • Until now Google has been pretty quiet about its in-video advertising capabilities. Earlier this year there was buzz about Google dabbling in in-game ads which leads me to believe they have been working towards perfecting their version of in-video ads for a while. I think contextual in-video ads will end up being the most compelling ad serving medium for consumers. However, there are so many companies in the video advertising game now, it is getting hard to keep track. ScanScout is definitely one to watch—they offer both an in-video overlay and a ticker with an expansion panel.

    achartwell — 12:10 PM on August 6, 2007 Reply

  • I just found another shared video based social network http://www.sharerevmedia.com that allows users to earn ad revenue through Google Adsense and from other Advertise network. You can Share your blogs, profile, videos, music, pictures and you will be rewarded by http://www.Sharerevmedia.com

    john — 2:48 PM on November 29, 2007 Reply

  • We Are Recognized Distributer of Electronics Products. We Specialize in a wide Range of Products such as Mobile Phones,Video Games, Laptops, Ipods, Xboxs and many more.

    Alex H — 6:00 AM on June 14, 2008 Reply

  • Does any one know when Google video ads will be available for Pakistan and other south Asian countries?

    Work Online — 10:48 AM on January 14, 2009 Reply

  • Wow! “Video ads” is the search hot trends today in google. If you know where to put your investment safe i’m sure it’s a big success. Good article. Let’s promote business by video ads explain all the benefits that you have in your global business investment.

    searchhottrends — 8:16 PM on November 18, 2009 Reply

Linkbacks (4)

Subscribe to comments feed

Leave a Reply

Sign up for our daily email: