Google to Distribute Online Video Ads

sufijazz writes to mention an AP story about Google's plan to start distributing online video ads. From the article: "The video expansion, announced late Monday, will affect thousands of Web sites that rely on Google to post ads related to the surrounding material on a page. For instance, a news story about housing might prompt Google to display an ad for real estate agents. Google isn't allowing the video ads to appear on its own Web site -- a heavily trafficked destination that produced 58 percent of its $2.25 billion in revenue during the first three months of this year."

Comments

Whew, good thing I RTFA

[Red Flayer]

FTA: "The appeal of Google's video ads might be dampened by controls that will prevent the messages from automatically streaming across a Web page. Google instead will display graphics promoting video ads that won't be played unless a viewer clicks on a play button."

The appeal to me is precisely that I don't have to watch the ads if I don't want to. Thank goodness.

Of course, advertisers are probably less enthused -- but I'm sure major brands understand that potential customers do get pissed off by intrusive advertising.

Re:Why not any Flash content?

[Rob T Firefly]

For once, what would be a 1MB video could easily fit into less than 100k vector and procedural (scripting enhanced) animation using the full toolset of Flash.

Because then the advertiser has to pay some Flash artist for who knows how long to magic them up a snazzy SWF file with who knows how many individually designed and programmed elements, instead of what is probably some idiot-proof tool to simply drag-and-drop an MPEG of their existing TV ads into.

not so bad

[swanriversean]

The appeal of Google's video ads might be dampened by controls that will prevent the messages from automatically streaming across a Web page. Google instead will display graphics promoting video ads that won't be played unless a viewer clicks on a play button.

The activation feature could discourage many advertisers from signing up for the new video service, said Jupiter Research analyst David Card. "This isn't going to be a game changer for Google, but it gives them a much richer palette."
</FTA>

It really isn't that bad, although I don't know how many people are going to click the ads. I'm sure some will to start, just for the novalty, but over time, I doubt this will be a big revenue generator for Google (wasn't that an original opinion considering the quote from Mr. Card!).

I wonder if the video will work on *nix anyway, and if it doesn't, whose going to bother installing the codec and plugin to make it work?

Google could get themselves into trouble though, if they let those pictures be animated, but I'm sure they know not to do that, otherwise they would just have the video start automatically.

Re:Truly unfortunate

[analysethis]

FTFH: "Google isn't allowing the video ads to appear on its own Web site "

Nukes. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

I spent a long time hoping for a fully functioning "NukeAnything". I even emailed the creator of the extension with my requests and mailed him a set of my favorite books by way of thanks (for making such a cool extension). Anyway, when I last upgraded, everything seemed to smooth out nicely.

I'm currently using. . .

NukeAnything Enhanced .53
Flashblock 1.5
on top of Firefox/1.5.0.1

I have no trouble Nuking flash banners. Maybe you can get some use out of that. . .

Cheers!

-FL

A reminder

[bruns]

A reminder to people who use the AdSense service (and not those of you who like to spout without knowing what you are talking about) - you can set your prefs so that only text ads will be displayed.

Re:Again??

[bhtooefr]

I suspect that it works much like the Google Video previews.

Go to Google Video, and search for something. Note the play buttons to see a short preview of the clip.

Click the button. It uses JavaScript to load the preview in Flash. ;)

Re:more fscking with the web

[Eideewt]

I don't know if you've tried the Filterset.g updater extension, but I've found it to be a real time saver. It updates Adblock with a list of ad servers so you don't have to. The only ads I've seen since installing it have been quirky ones that are actually served by the domain I'm visiting.

Flash video is downloaded only upon request

[hackrobat]

Having worked on the video playback component in Flash and Flex (I'm an engineer at Adobe), I feel obligated to enlighten you on the bandwidth implications for users visiting web sites containing Flash-based video ads.

There are three ways to play video in Flash:

1. Embedding the video directly into the SWF file
2. Downloading the FLV file over HTTP
3. Streaming the video over RTMP (FMS or FVSS)

Of these, the first one is recommended only for extremely small video clips (5 seconds or less), because embedding the video into the SWF, aside from providing poor quality playback, also bloats the size of the SWF file.

The other two have their pros and cons each, but they have one thing in common: video is downloaded only when requested. Streaming (option 3) has the additional advantage of requesting video frame-by-frame, whereas in the case of HTTP download, the entire file is requested at once (though the download can be aborted at any point during playback).

So, take a chill pill. The world is not coming to an end. If you don't want to see the ads, don't click on the play button.