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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."
Dial-up users will be delighted!
echo "This is not a lame sig generated through a pipe." | cat - >
They should use the famouse "Dildo song". It's the most popular download.
more wasted bandwidth.
"You killed my yogurt!" --Fred Fredburger
The people running on a minimum broadband connection or dialup will simply be forced to upgrade if they don't want to see their whole WWW experience crawl to a stop (literally)
This seems quite strange, if we consider that AdWords was the first miracle for Google's business in 2000. ;)
Do people really want to see video ads? Isn't it even more disturbing than banners? I hate the flash video ads in imdb for example. In the beginning, they even had sound turned on by default!
Google isn't completely stupid, since they won't try this on their own site... Maybe only a move to suggest bad ideas to its competitors
Nearly every site will blast annoying sounds out the instant I visit the page? We'll have to surf porn with the sound turned down?
Task Mangler
Semi-offtopic but does anyone know if Google has any kind of "briefcase" functionality like yahoo does? I'd like to be able to keep my resume and other such documents or files available to me online (without having to email them to myself).
for the extra electricity and CPU time they're wasting? Isn't this kind of advertising bad for the environment?!
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If the Eolas patent "Click To Activate" crap ever makes it to Firefox, I'll have to click on the ad to have it rammed down my throat? Sure, of course I will. If I didn't, it'd be like stealing the Internet.
Not only is this a waste of bandwidth, but Google became so popular because of their clear, textual interface. And that included their ads which were usually easily visible and not obnoxious to look at. I will actually click on relevant text links, but I don't click on banner ads or video ads, ever.
Hopefully this won't turn out as bad as it sounds.
Presently here, but not there.
>> 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.
Its close, but still - what if I dont want any video ad appearing on my website through adsense? Do people have choice of "only text"/"text and video"/"video only"?
from Do no Evil to We are the Source of all Evil.
Video ads will just use up a lot of bandwidth, make pages relying on google ads load slow, and be a real annoyance worse than banner ads and popups. Why aren't they doing it on their own page? Simple - they know that it makes whatever page that it shows up on look like crap and load slow.
Well, before this I had not blocked Google ads because they were not annoying and didn't waste much bandwidth. Now they have switched to video they can welcome themselves to my HOSTS file.
to my Bandwidth!
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
I'm puzzled, there has been some speculation of Google working on Flash ads support, but I didn't expect videos to make it before Flash.
Of course, the video player of Google (the online one) is working inside Flash, and uses Flash video, but why not allow *any* Flash content as an ad?
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.
---
Of course, last but not least, I wonder where is the promise of Google to always deliver light non-intrusive ads. Text-only ads were so great, but soon polluted by big image banner ads (not on the Google's site yet, but on google ad enhanced sites), and now... videos.
Google is walking on a thin line right now.
You have to click play for it to play the video.
I didn't know webpages had ads? Really?? Every once in while one will slip through, but a nice right click, block and bye bye ads! I'm sure this will be the next "battleground" the ad providers vs the ad blockers....
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.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seus
Well, previously I haven't been blocking Google's ads because they were just text. I guess that will change now.
I'm sure as hell not wasting my bandwidth downloading a VIDEO every time I visit a page.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Google Shareholder Emergency Meeting, May 23, 2006
CEO: amazon10x put us in his HOSTS file!
Shareholders: Nooo, not the HOSTS file! What are we going to do?
CEO: I guess we'll have to call off the highly profitable video ads.
Shareholders: *Whew!*
...all of you second-class netziens who can't afford the "upper crust" tier of Internet subscription won't be able to watch these ads.
:)
And then I will bask in your marketing-deprived jealousy. Enjoy the streaming-video-spam while you can, little ones!
Bwa. Ha. Haaaa.....
Didn't they announce something like this a few months ago also? That they would start to allow graphical ads (I don't remember if they could be animated or not). They said that quite awhile ago and most of the google adsense ads I see are still text. I wouldn't worry too much about it. If they become prevalant I'm sure there will be mucho backlash. Google survives on its customer loyality (unlike file format lockin. cough, cough). If they piss off their customers there's nothing really keeping them there. The only thing keeping their current customers is good service.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Expect to see ads for Democratic nominees in the next election, but don't expect to see any for Republicans (Google will run ads criticizing republicans, but not democrats).
Sorry, don't mean to turn this into a political discussion, but with all the Chinese censorship, and all the stuff I've been reading about liberal bias at Google, I find it harder and harder to be sympathetic towards them.
Don't hate me for having a different opinion. We should be encouraging discourse, not shouting down viewpoints we disagree with.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Geez, dude, get with the program! Don't you know any /. reply that mentions pron at least gets left alone and more often than not gets modded up ?!
Will all Adsense (TM) publishers get this, or will they need to opt in? Will the impressions or clicks be worth more to the publisher? Didn't notice in TFA...
one of the things that pisses me off more than anything, as someone who has a cable connection at 3Mbs, is that I'll get pages to load and hang as some remote server is loading up an ad or image or something. You sit there and look at a half loaded web page for seconds on end. Don't site admins and companies know this pisses off users?
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Video based ads really get your attention, they are usually more entertaining that just a flashy logo and the companys latest deal that we see in flash ads.
Why is this a good thing? Everyone who visits a site will actually see the ad rather than ignore it, so webmasters can demand more money and stop producing websites that try and trick you into clicking an ads and stuff.
Video is a proven model or advertizing, ask someone what was the last web ad they seen? now ask someone what was the last tv commerical?
Maybe advertizers will start demanding better content?
Maybe we will see a whole new industry built on creating video ads for the web?
Video ads usually get your attention with something entertaining... Some nice eye candy...
This will really put a push on building better networks and pushing broadband, maybe advertizers will start putting pressure on broadband providers... Demand for bandwidth with money behind it, unlike bittorrent which is a demand for bandwidth without any money behind it.
Ofcourse there is the bad side, it dose suck if your on dialup or slow broadband, or have a slower computer, but all you have to do is uninstall flash or not install it in the first place, hell this might be the push we need to have average joe buy a new computer and broadband...
God, root, what is the difference?
I often "Shoot the duck" or "Stomp on the spider" or "Kill the ninja" or whatever while I'm waiting for a page to load (as pages that tend to have these adds tend to load slow). I use Firefox so when I "win" the popup doesn't appear. I just get to have a little bit of guilty pleasure. This is an interesting more. It seems to be on the face or it a poor one from what I can see, similar to what people have already states, advertisers aren't going to be happy. Then again, Google ads are very popular because they are non-intrusive. If you have non-intrusive video adds you will still be reaching the large audience Google Ads already reaches. And don't forget, if they don't click on it, its still a picture add (presumably). I guess Google are banking on advertisers realising this. See annoying add. Block it/Ignore it. See picture of something interesting. Click to play, go to website. Which would get more? Time will tell I guess.
Maybe Google is secretly working on more advanced video compression... DAN DAN DAANNNNNNNNNN!
With a xxx*yy size flash video you can be sure to keep it in sane levels.
I have seen flash banner ads with 10s of translucent layers and antialiasing and shit that tried to run at 1000 fps or so. One of them made an A64 come down to a crawl.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Having to click the ad to play will only dampen appeal to some advertisers. Webmasters and users will love the fact that it's a nice visual ad that does not play without user consent.
I'm sure Google will have advertisers lining up even with this "downside".
Really... how many of these stupid "OMG NO VIDEO ON PAGE LOAD!" posts are there going to be?
The second comment more than half an hour before this clears up the issue.
I can understand the tons of AC's posting it just to be stupid, but real people with real ID's this dumb?
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
I bet you click on those "punch the monkey" banners too.
Why is google by far the largest search engine? It's not because they're a better search engine, they arn't, especially when they were new. Lycos was the original search engine, and they had the lion's share of the market.
No, Google dominates because they were fast, clean, and not annoying. If you look at this thread you'll see many people saying "I click on google ads sometimes, no others" That's why google gets hits.
The day they change what they are sending from text to graphics half of the sites that put them up will drop them. This would be a marketing decision who's brilliance would rival 'New Coke' and would be remembered for at least as long.
As I was saying Google is not that stupid. If they make a new stream that does what they're talking about, fine, more power to them. It won't work, but it wouldn't be fatal to them.
Wow. What did you get paid to say that?
First of all, I do not want web pages to ever play sound. If I consider animated graphic ads to be such an annoyance that I have blocked them, why would I be more likely to click and ad that is not only visually offensive, but audibly offensive too?
Second, it's pure arrogance to think people can just go out and buy a new computer and get broadband. It's been said a thousand times, and it is still true. Not everybody can get broadband. Some people are not able to afford it, and some people don't even have the option to get it short of expensive satellite options. Nor can everybody afford a new computer. Not even a $300 eMachine.
The idea that advertisements will push broadband adoption is ridiculous. All large ads will do is drive away a site's visitors. Pushing broadband adoption requires content.
This piece is tagged "missing-the-point" presumably because the point is that we all hate online video ads, and prefer text links, so WTF is Google doing.
But there's another way that this plan misses the point. It's in having a two-minute limit on the video.
Why is this a problem?
30-second ads are based on the interruption ad model: you don't want to watch, so they keep it short. Interruption ads don't work online, which is a choice-based medium (or should be).
Google's plan is the some people will want to click on these things to watch the videos. But by limiting it to 2 minutes, they drastically reduce the amount of interesting content that could be offered.
For example, corporation X could offer you a bunch of videos from a band you like; their logo's at the end, but otherwise, it's just the video. You might be tempted to click to watch - but of course you'll be irritated, because the song will have to cut off after 2 minutes.
In other words, this plan is the worst of both worlds - it doesn't work under the hard-sell interuption model of old advertising, or under the new choice-based model, which is "do something genuinely interesting for me and I might actually watch it - in which case it should be as long as I want it to be".
You didn't RTFA either, did you? The ads won't play unless the user activates them. They won't catch anyone's eye unless they are actually clicked on by the consumer. Meaning they'll take just as much clicking as ever before.
It's a good thing I have an AMD64. That protects me from those pesky Flash ads... and in fact from running any Flash content at all! Yay.
But this wrecks integration with the rest of the site.
(Disclaimer, I am not an adwords subscriber, so I am not sure exactly how much control you get)
With textual ads, I assume that a little CSS can blend the add nicely into the rest of your site.
But with these new picture (and then video) ads, they don't fit in anymore to the rest of the sites appearance.
I realize not all sites are fashion conscious, but there are some sites out there that I am sure will hate the new picture ads.
This
Just to take a few of your assertations one at a time:
Can't remember. Must have been a few weeks ago thanks to a good adblocker.
Can't remember. I use ad breaks to go to the toilet, make a cup of tea etc.
So I assume there are no boring ads on TV?
Advertiser: "Oh, look, new media format. Suddenly I can see the light!"
But finally, here's the one that really got me.
I live in central Tanzania. "Broadband" here costs $3,500/month, and runs at 312K. The average national wage is about $400. "Average" may not mean exactly what you think it means.
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
Potential broadband customer: "Why should I get broadband?"
Salesman: "Then you can watch video ads!"
PBC: "..."
I'm currently using. . .
NukeAnything Enhanced
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
Again more traffic from ads that people are going to pay for without actually deciding. They will be probably Flash based as those at video.google.com so I'm really thinking of uninstalling flash player. Haven't seen any usefull flash site (except ads) in a while.
Pixel image editor - http://www.kanzelsberger.com
From the creators of the top-acclaimed "Do no evil", comes "Marketing menace"!!!
Will this be a trilogy following the good-wins-then-bad-wins-then-good-wins-again pattern? Hope so.
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.
Brielle
I don't know any advertisers who care how much they annoy us... I don't even think the word "annoy" registers in their minds properly. They only think More people seeing my stuff! Buy my stuff! BUY MY STUFF!
Course I could be wrong, but considering so many still serve popups when not a single person I've ever met, heard of, or dreamed of is not annoyed by them, it's the only explanation I can think of.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
>Just to take a few of your assertations one at a time:
>> ask someone what was the last web ad they seen?
> Can't remember. Must have been a few weeks ago thanks to a good adblocker.
I'm talking about average joe here, most people don't use ad blockers... Hell I don't even bother with ad blockers, I just ignore most ads.
>> now ask someone what was the last tv commerical?
>Can't remember. I use ad breaks to go to the toilet, make a cup of tea etc.
The few times I've watched TV in the past few months I've found the ads to be entertaining, they do get old and annoying really quickly, but the first time around they are entertaining.
>> Video ads usually get your attention with something entertaining... Some nice eye candy...
> So I assume there are no boring ads on TV?
No but there are lots of entertaining ones out there...
>> Maybe advertizers will start demanding better content?
> Advertiser: "Oh, look, new media format. Suddenly I can see the light!"
Video ads cost alot more to produce,
> But finally, here's the one that really got me.
>> this might be the push we need to have average joe buy a new computer and broadband...
> I live in central Tanzania. "Broadband" here costs $3,500/month, and runs at 312K. The average national > wage is about $400. "Average" may not mean exactly what you think it means.
Ofcourse broadband depends on many factors, the main one being demand, small demand and no supply == high cost, large demand and supply leads to competition and over subscription which means reasonable pricing.
Currently there is a lack of demand in the US for broadband, many average joe types a happy with dialup.
Also video ads don't stop people on dialup and on slow computers from viewing existing content.
Video ads are likely to be a more effective method of advertizing but advertisers are not going to put money into producing videos and bandwidth if there is no content to force people to view them. I think the name of the game is going to be producing websites that you view long enough to watch the entire video. So this means real content! Its not going to be a game of trying to get people to click the ads, but trying to get people to stay on one page long enough for the video to play to end. Now there will still be lots of annoying sites that try and force you to watch a video before accessing the content.
The fact that google is getting behind this is what I like. There are already companys producing video ads, I see these mircosoft ads here on slashdot all the time. Thankfully the sound is muted by default.
I personally don't mind the ads playing by default aslong as the sound is turned off. On my computers that are too slow to play video I simply don't have flash installed.
Broadband is widely avaiable here in Canada, unless you live in the middle of no where there is both adsl and cable.
There is a major lack of good quality legal broadband content online right now. Google video and yourtube are improving the situaltion but there is still very little professional quality content. Why? because there is no ad revenue to support it. Traditional banner ads or google ads barely cover the bandwidth if that. Hopefully video ads will pump some much needed money into this area.
God, root, what is the difference?
CEO: amazon10x set up us the HOSTS ! Shareholders: What you say !! CEO: Take off every 'vid' !! Shareholders: You know what you doing. CEO: For great justice.
Arg. Should have previewed: here's the formatted version
CEO: amazon10x set up us the HOSTS !
Shareholders: What you say !!
CEO: Take off every 'vid' !!
Shareholders: You know what you doing.
CEO: For great justice.
Yes, they get your attention. That's the point. They are highly distracting and annoying. When I'm listening to music I don't want advertisement sounds/music blasting out of my speakers on top of it. Not to mention for users on low-end PCs (i.e. the one I presently use to connect to the Internet): It's bad enough that Firefox's extensions have memory issues, but to have video ads playing would slow it down to a crawl.
Thank goodness for Adblock Plus!
I saw this on Thursday at fanfiction.net. Here's what it looked like: http://nandhp.tripod.com/googlevideoad.html [JPEG compressed to 8kb]
Ad blockers are the number one extension for every major browser in use today. ISPs even send out their installation kits with included ad blockers. Most people may not block all ads, but most people block at least some ads and the number blocking all ads is only increasing. Just take a look at the top extensions for web clients and their growth. They're ad blockers. Look at the growth of PVRs. People love being able to record shows and...skip ads.
The people have spoken, and you just don't like their answer.
I don't know what the last ad I saw was on the Internet because I've been blocking them for years now. Even before then I couldn't tell you because I just ignored them. People become ad blind, which is why I bought a PVR. Instead of spending 15% more time watching television programs than I had to with periods of me spacing out or wandering for snacks I just skip commercials entirely. That's an average of 15% of my time spent watching TV back to do things that can't be done in three minute intervals. No, video ads won't encourage me to get broadband or a new computer. I don't own a computer to watch advertisements.
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:
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.
Google is portraying the new ad product as the latest revolutionary way that it is leveling the playing field for small businesses, according to a NYT Google quote: "A large percentage of video ads will come from small advertisers. A small resort owner in Maui probably already has video of their great beachfront property. Now they can put it in an ad and reach a qualified set of users." Google has also been characterizing its offline ad distribution attempts as enabling systems for small businesses, such as its print ad auction. The auction failed, however, and Google's small business radio ad distribution strategy with DMarc Broadcasting has not materialized. (http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=13)
"Ofcourse there is the bad side, it dose suck if your on dialup or slow broadband, or have a slower computer, but all you have to do is uninstall flash or not install it in the first place"
Sure, great solution. I don't like annoying radio ads either, so I think I'll just punch out my speakers...
So we will now have commericals while surfing the internet? Next we'll be buying internet tivo's.
I still do, ever since a "friend" sent me that damn joke page that shouts, "HEY EVERYONE! I'M LOOKING AT GAY PORN!".
Sony ha
Sure we'll help you take a shit in public. Just go do it on the neighbor's lawn. And hand over the cash.
It is going to be a windows/mac only player right? I'm sure glad I'm running Linux!
What was once a great search engine is now an overweight, bloated behemouth intending to stamp it's prescence across the Internet, sucking up money while pestering us with ad's we do not want.
Time to find a new search portal boys and grils. And Macro$lut cn kiss my fat, haory, putulant, hemeroidal ass if they think I will be using their search engine
What is interesting to me is how the revenue model is going to work. There can be a tiered model where Google charges $X for every graphic impression of the ad, $Y for every download/playing of the ad and $Z for every visit to the advertiser's website. If it's Flash, the ad can include a hyperlinked URL at the end, can't it?
And does it matter how long the ad is? Will there be differential pricing depending upon the length of the ad?
For advertisers, I think this is a good challenge because they have to make their first graphic interesting/eye-catching/enticing. So we may get to see good, creativite work (or just photographs of hot chicks with strategically located Play buttons).
2+2=5 for very large values of 2.
Unfortunately AIM has started running these ads in the top of their client, and they are videos. And they will just start playing at random.
This does two things: it comes out of my speakers which are usually cranked pretty loud, AND they consume system resources temporarily enough to slow down my machine.
That PISSES ME OFF TO NO EXTENT, so I will usually close out of the AIM client (or minimize it), I am hoping that AIM is seeing how many people let the video run it's length, and when they look at my stat, they will realize that each and every time a video comes on, I close out of it. Perhaps they will stop sending those damn things.
Libertas in infinitum
does this not go aginst their philosophy
I fear the Y2038 bug
Waiter: Evil, Google? Google: No, thanks. But my customers will might have a smidgeon.
Reading through these comments, one has to wonder just how short the attentionn span of the average slashdotter really is. This article is real short, yet nobody seems to have read it and everyone makes false assumptions on the "suspect the worst" model.
According to TFA the video ads will _not_ be starting playback automatically, but only if a play button is pressed.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?