YouTube Sells Out; Debuts InVideo Advertisements

You knew it had to happen someday; Google has started to aggressively monetize its $1.6 billion video acquisition by introducing an intrusive brand of video advertising that takes over the bottom 20% of the video player.

This sort of ad is being called an InVideo ad, or a transparent overlay. TV watchers in the US will be familiar with them since almost all television networks feature small logos or other promotions that run across the bottom of the screen while a program is airing. Clearly, innovation isn't the watchword at the Googleplex these days.

Only select videos will be showing ads since Google doesn't want to expose advertisers to unauthorized copyright content. For now, only professional content uploaded by the likes of Warner Music and user-produced content from groups like Lonelygirl15 are "blessed" with these ads. Here's a sample video.

A gold stripe in the progress bar (see above) indicates if and when a video ad will play (about 15 seconds into a video). If you click on the ad, it will expand to fill the video player and may turn out to be a video itself or just a regular display ad.

By the way, these ads don't come cheap. They cost $20 a CPM, or $20 per thousand impressions. This could eventually net Google an estimated $34 million in revenue a month if it rolls out to include all YouTube videos.

[via]

Labels: Technology