Posted by
samzenpus
on from the this-bread-brought-to-you-by dept.
_14k4 writes "Video website YouTube is to feature advertising for the first time, after Google revealed it is offering companies the chance to run ads on some of the site's most popular content." I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
Re:cue the whiners...
by
Mr.+Capris
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· Score: 4, Funny
Great, now when I get rickrolled, I'll have to sit through a related commercial.
Uh...what exactly is related to Rick Astley? Anyone?
-- Have you seen the arrow?
Re:cue the whiners...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
LMAO nice
Re:cue the whiners...
by
Lumpy
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· Score: 4, Funny
What about all the paid shills?
"not watching youtube ad's is stealing internet" "Thousands of google employees will starve if you dont watch the ad's" "You help the terrorists win if you dont view the ad's" and my favorite.... "you are breaking your contract if you dont watch the ad's"
-- Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:cue the whiners...
by
utopianfiat
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· Score: 4, Funny
We're no strangers to ads you use youtube and so do I large-scale advertising's what I'm thinking of you wouldn't get this service from any other guy I just want to tell you about expedia gotta make you understand
-- +5, Truth
Re:cue the whiners...
by
SirTicksAlot
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· Score: 5, Funny
You forgot:
"You are violating the DMCA by not watching the ads."
By closing my eyes I am circumventing the ad delivery mechanism.
Does that mean if you link into youtube to watch a particularly funny add, they will show you an add prior to allowing you to watch the add, or will they just force you to watch the add twice if the right advertiser pays for the add to be placed over their own add;).
Google addmail (blackmail), don't pay for the add and competing products will be shown prior to your content much the same as 'ads supplied by google' on particular web sites are often the opposition to the web sites they are on.
Now google searches will be spitting up endless sites that do nothing but link back to paid google video adverts.
Thank goodness! I was starting to miss commercials when I watched shows on YouTube. Maybe Google can talk to all those BitTorrent guys about getting ads in those shows too. Hopefully it'll be very well targetted too, like luxury cars and tampons!
There's hardly any blood in some scenes, and the ass-to-mouth ratio is enormous!
Re:Thank goodness!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
oh, man, what a sweet combination. cruising down the highway in a brand new porsche, a box of tampex riding shotgun. oh, we're gonna have some fun tonight baby.
Did anyone really expect
by
ironwill96
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· Score: 5, Insightful
them to spend 1.65 BILLION dollars on something if they didn't have a revenue source in mind? The existing business model of YouTube was...oh wait, there wasn't actually a business model unless selling to some bigger company counts.
-- "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Re:Did anyone really expect
by
porkThreeWays
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· Score: 1
Oh how the mighty have fallen! I didn't realize AOL was in such a bad situation right now. There was a story awhile back that the saving grace of the Soviet Union was to be "gas powered boots". I feel like AOL is at the same point right now with their "greetings that will actually say your name". Of course the wikipedia entry could be a little biased... but it honestly sounds like AOL has become Netscape. The focus isn't on the software anymore or even their internet service, but content delivery (of content they can get anywhere in a better format).
-- If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Re:Did anyone really expect
by
Jugalator
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· Score: 1
them to spend 1.65 BILLION dollars on something if they didn't have a revenue source in mind? Having a revenue source doesn't imply having video ads. Far from it.:-p
-- Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Yeah, because Google throws in all those Flash ads and animated images to their search results.. Oh wait.
No, they can actually generate a ton of revenue from unobtrusive text ads placed in the WWW page. Hmmm..
I'll admit that I was never a big fan of YouTube before. The quality was horrible, and the content was mostly garbage. But, placing video advertisements before the desired content guarantees that my viewing goes from infrequent to almost never. It also opens the door to competitors who find a way to be less annoying in delivering video.
Actually YouTube did have a business model. It was based on advertising, which is why Google bought it. In the beginning, the creators of YouTube ran up their credit card bills and did not have any advertising until they created a big user base. Then they advertised only with one company on the main page with special content to click on, this one advertiser found its way to other pages as well. Because they held out from selling ads for so long, they were able to create one advertising space that was highly desirable. Think supply not meeting demand. Although it was a strange business model for a startup, they did have one that started to pay their bills. Either they sucked at advertising, or they were so good you did not notice.
-- Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
Re:Did anyone really expect
by
shinma
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· Score: 1
Placing video advertisements before the desired content guarantees that my viewing goes from infrequent to almost never. Except there is no video advertisement before the desired content. I know it's odd to expect people to RTFA, but really... It's a small graphic overlay at the bottom of the video that can be dismissed.
-- Shinma
Re:Did anyone really expect
by
djdavetrouble
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· Score: 3
The quality was horrible,
yes, wtf? the world has lowered its standards. no longer is high fidelity king!! People just want tons of free SHIT, encoded shittily (youtube, google video, mp3's etc...)
oh wait, there wasn't actually a business model unless selling to some bigger company counts
That's a pretty common business model. (Remember broadcast.com?) Though in this case I'd amend that to "Selling to Google." Nobody else has both ultra-deep pockets and a lust for products whose main virtue is their technological coolness. After all, YouTube is the first streaming video site to have a really elegant user experience and do it with a scalable infrastructure. There was no way Google could resist. (And no way anybody else could even consider it.) They probably told each other, "We just can't pass this up. We can afford it. We'll worry about a revenue model later."
Except now they seem to be feeling the pinch of all that bandwidth cost (1.9 billion video minutes a month). Plus all those lawsuits. So maybe Google has to operate in the real world for once.
Re:Did anyone really expect
by
DrEldarion
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· Score: 1
Elegant user experience? I take it you haven't read any Youtube comments lately.
More accurately google did have a business model at that time, it was selling google stock, and google didn't want the public to see google video losing to youtube, the only reason they bought youtube was because they were not competing effectively for market share and being seen as a loser in the market is not the best way to increase your share price.
Well, duh, but maybe, just maybe mind you, I'm like, duh, not really sure about this, but just maybe, all the original investor etc. have not sold all their shares yet and are interested in the highest possible share price, and they are all still involved in running the company. Now why would they buy a competing company if their product was better and winning, a charitable purchase perhaps, and what pray tell did google buy youtube with cash, or was it something else, hmm?
> More accurately google did have a business model at that time, it was selling google stock,
You didn't say anything about the founders there. Nonetheless, all of that information is public, and you can look at the stock transactions that took place around that time, nothing looks out of the ordinary what-so-ever.
I really don't mind ads on the side of the page. Hell, I don't even mind flash ads if they are not so big and without sound (aghh). But having to watch 30 sec ads before a video, just to see something that I'm not even sure I will like, this is a think I don't tolerate. Oh well... Money is king.
-- It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Maybe someone should link an article with some real information about the ads:
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.
This is a different kind of ad, just like Google changed ads on the internet they are changing commercials in video.
How will Google try to prevent users from circumventing the ads? I don't think the "if" is even a question. And does this represent a move towards Evil(tm)?
-- "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
How do you equate using video ads on a video site to generate revenue for an otherwise free service to be evil? I can think of much more evils than that (even relegating that terms use to describe the actions of corporations)
-- "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I am not sure if you're lumping me in with the prevailing attitude, but I will say:
(a) DRM is a bad idea, and it doesn't work. (b) It is unethical to break DRM if you agreed to those restrictions when you made the purchase. (c) Comparing ads on websites to restrictions on things you purchased is counterintuitive.
-- Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Nope, I wasn't. a. Agreed. b. Agree there too. c. I think it's a valid comparison. In both cases, the owner of the content is restricting how you use their product.
-- "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
_______|-------|______
shark --------------> google
I do have a point. Google has been for some time shifted any focus from innovation to monetization. Are they really losing that much money that they need this revenue?
Damn lameness filter. It disagrees with the ratio of my 'junk' characters to 'meaningful' characters. Maybe I should just spend this time inciting violence form the grammar nazis?
Re:Wait for it....
by
veganboyjosh
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· Score: 5, Funny
Maybe I should just spend this time inciting violence form the grammar nazis?
You're on the right track...
Re:Wait for it....
by
crabpeople
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· Score: 2, Funny
Mexican shark with oversized sombrero moves into google?
Hmm not sure what the meaning behind that symbolism is, but at least its creative./pats parents head
--
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
dada21
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I think YouTube is fantastic -- I can grab snippets of information that I'm interested in, plus also have the option to search for proam video from events that normally don't get broadcast in the MSM. I think YouTube should offer some sort of "revenue sharing" options, though. This would quickly destroy the MSM as pro-am or pro videographers and filmographers could find income for their ventures.
I'd prefer to see YouTube offer a "subscriber" option -- pay $x/month or $x/GB transferred to skip ads of all sorts. Sure, you can block some ads, but the video inserts you can't. Flash Video is capable of skipping segments based on server-data, such as seeing if a person has a subscription and if they have free gigs left. I'd happily pay for my video snippets -- even moreso if part of my subscription went to the video author or "owner."
One-way TV is too limiting -- either you get all a channel's offerings, or you don't get it at all. Some channels are starting to allow PPV on-demand, which is excellent, but I still have to get the full buffet of channels (Digital ones) to get PPV. I'd rather do an a la carte selection, honestly. In 2 years, the amount I'd save over having to maintain a decent media center PC would be worth it for me (considering my media center PC is probably worth $1500 and has to be upgraded every so often) for the limited TV we watch.
YouTube has a huge opportunity here to offer snippets, full shows, and amateur content, while offering the viewer the option to pay up front, or watch ads rather than paying. Bandwidth and hosting ain't free, not even for Google, who can also handle fee distribution between their hosting office and the content "owner." This is a big step to also reduce the need for companies to monitor for copyright infringement, as it gives them the option to host their own stuff and make the pennies per hit.
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
kebes
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I think YouTube should offer some sort of "revenue sharing" options, though.
YouTube already does this. It's called being a "YouTube partner." Most of the highly-subscribed channels are partners and get a bit of money from the views (Wikipedia info here and official blog here).
I'd prefer to see YouTube offer a "subscriber" option -- pay $x/month or $x/GB transferred to skip ads of all sorts.
I'm sure some users would take advantage of such an option. However my guess would be that most users (who frequent YouTube quite casually) wouldn't consider spending money on a YouTube subscription. So, ultimately, most of YouTube's revenue is not going to come from subscription programs. Similar to Slashdot: the subscriber option exists but it seems to be a minority who use it.
YouTube has a huge opportunity here to offer snippets, full shows, and amateur content, while offering the viewer the option to pay up front, or watch ads rather than paying. Bandwidth and hosting ain't free, not even for Google, who can also handle fee distribution between their hosting office and the content "owner." This is a big step to also reduce the need for companies to monitor for copyright infringement, as it gives them the option to host their own stuff and make the pennies per hit.
I agree that there is a huge opportunity here. Both amateurs and the big networks have the chance here to make serious money by posting content on YouTube. I don't think anyone has a big problem with ads, as long as they are reasonable (not too annoying, not too long, etc.). I'm hoping that YouTube understands how to implement ads (hint: reasonably unobtrusive, like Google ads, and not consistently bothersome, like TV ads).
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
sacrilicious
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· Score: 1
ultimately, most of YouTube's revenue is not going to come from subscription programs [because] most users (who frequent YouTube quite casually) wouldn't consider spending money on a YouTube subscription
Though users might well contemplate spending money if it enables them to avoid watching ads. Other incentives in return for money could include delivering higher quality vids (larger view area, better compression levels) or early or exclusive access to certain media.
-- -
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I don't know how to feel when you post something without rambling on about "anarcho-capitalism". Could you try and include at least a little something about it in all of your future posts? Sincerely, The Internet.
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
Frumply
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· Score: 1
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss subscriber-based services. A Japanese Youtube clone called NicoNico Video has approx. 2million IDs (considering that most people have multiple accts for no good reason the actual viewer count's probably closer to 1million) to date, and latest reports they have 50,000+ users on a 500yen/month 'premium' account. It's still a minority group, but if Youtube could get a similar percentage of people to sign up for a premium account, that's a good amount of money they could be making.
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
There is a video sharing site out there that uses relatively unobstrusive ads and shares revenue. It's called revver (http://www.revver.com/).
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
Virgil+Tibbs
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· Score: 1
OR, you could download adblock plus and firefox, and never see an advert in your life. Where's the price in that?
-- www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
CODiNE
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· Score: 4, Funny
Similar to Slashdot: the subscriber option exists but it seems to be a minority who use it.
Yeah, one day Taco said to Hemos "Man if I had a nickel every time someone said 'FIRST POST' I'd... . I'd.. heeeeeey..."
It's the greatest troll of all time, running for years on end and the secret didn't get out til NOW. The trolls are PAYING for their first posts!! HAAAAH!!
I suggest Google run a similar scam and charge $0.50 per first post. It's like a handicapped parking spot for trolls.
-- Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
Antony-Kyre
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· Score: 1
The kind of model I would hope to see is as follows.
Play a 10 to 15 second advertisement before the video, then show the video, but do not cross merge the video files with advertisements.
Maybe set a cookie on the user's computer so once someone has viewed an advertisement within the past 24 hours or so, they won't get another commercial until that time is up.
Given the current model, this is only a minor change, which should bring revenue into their system. They only need to break even ideally, right? Google has other ways to make money, correct?
Re:Excellent opportunity to test multiple choices
by
Mr.Spaz
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· Score: 1
I like the subscriber idea, but I would prefer to see it operate in reverse: The uploader would have the option of paying a fee to keep their content ad-free or near-ad-free, and therefore less likely to be skipped by viewers.
You should try RTFA. You don't need to sit through commercials before viewing the video you went to view. In fact, the overlayed 1/5th of the lower portion, commercial can be dismissed with one click.
Sitting through commercials
by
reset_button
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· Score: 5, Informative
I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
Did you RTFA before posting? (I know, I know, it's Slashdot...)
From the article:
The featured adverts are animated semi-transparent banners, or "overlays", that run along the bottom of the screen about 15 seconds into the video. They stay there for 10 seconds, allowing viewers to click on the overlay, which launches a deeper interactive video advert, while the main video is temporarily paused. Or viewers can ignore the overlay, and it will disappear.
Seems to me like a pretty effective, yet not very obtrusive method for advertising.
Re:Sitting through commercials
by
_14k4
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· Score: 5, Informative
Actually, I did rtfa... that line "I can't wait to sit..." was not from my submission and added by the person who approved the article for the front page. But, you knew that already anyway.
I agree with you - it is pretty effective and not very obtrusive... however, with the addition of "ipod/etc" download options on google video, and I would assume youtube, does this mean that if you dload a video for your ipod that it will have an advert in it?
It is all flash based, so one could assume/hope not...
Re:Sitting through commercials
by
reset_button
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· Score: 1
But, you knew that already anyway.
I didn't notice that in the posting. My apologies.
Re:Sitting through commercials
by
cybermage
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· Score: 1
Did you RTFA before posting?
Yeah, no kidding! I submitted the same story like four hours earlier with a correct summary:
The New York Times (registration likely required) has a report on Google's plans to recoup its $1.65 billion investment in You Tube. Borrowing a move from television networks, Google will introduce advertising that overlays the bottom fifth of the video starting at the 15 second mark. Are they going to kill the goose that has so far laid a giant goose egg for their bottom line?
There's just no accounting for the "editorial" process here on Slashduh.
Re:Sitting through commercials
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
cybermage,
That is a far more fair and accurate summary than what got posted. I really don't get the editorial taste here at/. either. Thanks for trying, though.
Re:Sitting through commercials
by
_14k4
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· Score: 1
No problem!
Re:Sitting through commercials
by
noidentity
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· Score: 1
Transparent overlay? Yay, I bet that'll be the straw that breaks my slow computer's metaphorical back. Only YouTube videos play back decently; other video sites appear very jerky.
Re:Sitting through commercials
by
hobbes64
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· Score: 1
I assume that you will be able to find the same videos uploaded by other users without the ads. If youtube could really stop this then there wouldn't be any copyrighted material on the site.
Re:Sitting through commercials
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
don't worry about it. We'll see your story next week, or, if I know the editors right, in a few hours...
There will be targeted ads WHILE you watch. On the side of of viewing something.
Like watching the new Showtime show "Californication"? Imagine a scene where the character Hank is having sex with some hottie and a condom ad pops up on the side like some bizarre Ad Sense clicky!
This in itself may end illegal downloads forever! Or maybe not...
--
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Not that intrusive...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Informative
These ads are simply overlaid on the bottom portion of the video. They don't last very long, and can be closed at any time.
Since we all knew they had to have ads at some point- this is probably the best way they could have done it.
Re:Not that intrusive...
by
srmalloy
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· Score: 2, Informative
And we now have the webvideo equivalent of the 'upcoming program advertisement' that broadcast and cable TV channels have taken to overlaying on program content, so that even if you record the program and view it later with a tool to skip the commercials, you can't avoid the in-program advertisements that can take up a sixth of your screen in bright, distracting colors (and, in some cases, sounds).
However, in this CNN article on the subject, it says that "the video owner can decline all ads or selected ones, such as those from competitors" -- although I'm not sure how the 'decline selected ads' mechanism would work; it sounds fiddly to set up individual exclusions when the video is uploaded. The ad placement is also going to be charged 'by the eyeball' -- a fee per presentation, not per clickthrough, which could make popular videos expensive to buy adspace on, and supposedly the video owner will receive a cut of the advertising revenue (details are not yet available), which gives them an incentive not to just check the "No advertising on this video" box when they upload the video. We will have to see what the video uploaders choose to do if they get a choice whether or not to have an ad slapped on top of their video, and whether YouTube will yank the option not to have any ads if too many people say they don't want ads on their videos.
I spend a lot of time on Youtube...I love how you can find just about anything on there.
I think that this, especially revenue sharing, concept could really revolutionize media on the internet. Or at least move it to the next level.
Think about it.
The big "series" carried on youtube, which I've never watched, have HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of views...The Youtube Celebrities have a shot to, well, make some money off of something that they have a passion for.
This will change things for some people. Interested to watch...
Re:Not that intrusive...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
These are going to be dynamic ads. You make a request for time and demographic you want to advertise to and your ad can be overlaid on videos that are ad enabled. In other words you aren't going get stuck paying 2 cents per view on a hugely popular video and blow your advertising budget.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
jollyreaper
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· Score: 1
don't misunderstand me, I understand the need to earn money on content, but when I try to watch a sequence on some American news site I have to sit through 30 secs of adds for some product not available to me from a company I have never heard of. The only result is I often close the page and move to next link on fark. Now google might be better at serving a commercial that is relevant, but I doubt it. EXACTLY my thoughts. If I'm sent a link to a news site, I'll figure out what the search terms for the story will be, then look it up on Youtube where I know I'll get the viddy without the addy. Youtube isn't the only video hosting site out there. If they make the ads obnoxious, they'll just drive traffic elsewhere.
-- Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Yay, another thing I have to click on to get the video? Like when their stupid menu decides to minimize the showing video. I really really really HATE using my mouse, its the source of carpel tunnel syndrome and it pisses me off when a website forces me to shift to mouse.
Sounds good to me.
by
SocialEngineer
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· Score: 4, Insightful
No waiting to watch the video, and has some nice features to it. While I'm sure most people would say "BOO!" to advertising, Google has made itself known as someone who cares about targeted advertising. I myself have found a number of retailers through Google's contextual advertising which I have patronized.
I guess most people have become disenfranchised with the dubious nature of national adverts for weight loss pills and whatnot, which is understandable. Publishing companies that allow such advertising into their products are doing their customers a disservice, as well as the industry. Look at what it has brought us - the necessity for ad blocking on the web, TiVO, etc.. Who knows if those of us in the publishing industry will ever be able to regain the trust of our consumers (I work in the newspaper industry).
-- "Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Publishing companies that allow such advertising into their products are doing their customers a disservice, as well as the industry. Look at what it has brought us - the necessity for ad blocking on the web, TiVO, etc..
I've said it before and I'll say it again... the reason I block ads online is because of the one for Mortgages with the dancing silhouettes.
the publishing industry will ever be able to regain the trust of our consumers (I work in the newspaper industry).
Promote groups and individuals who don't have profit driven agendas in the "non-paid" sections. When the Culture section of the Sunday paper features links to Creative Commons and similarly licensed artists... I will trust that beneath the corporately funded exterior that newspapers still have my best interests in mind.
As an example of one such organization, check out Architecture for Humanity. They certainly don't have tons of money to waste funding themselves through advertising... so if a newspaper can help spread their good message that would be a blessing.
WTF Google. Those are the most annoying type of internet ads. Even more annoying than "interactive" Flash shit. There really has to be a better solution.
Of course, most of the best on there isn't the most popular, so that's some comfort at least.
Re:God Dammit
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Really? More annoying than popups? More annoying than interstitials? Yay for hyperbole!
Oh yeah... popups. I forgot about them what with using Firefox and all...
Interstitials: yes.
It's not hyperbole to have an opinion. And who the hell modded me flamebait?! I'm sorry if I offended anyone on Slashdot who really likes lonelygirl or Flash-based ads.
(My favorite vid on YouTube is the one where an elephant sticks its trunk up another's ass and pulls out a turd and eats it. It'll come up if you search for "poop." Priceless.)
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
Salgat
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· Score: 1
What they should do is run a 2-5 second image ad before video clips, that is is no way intrusive and I'm sure companies would love to pay to have a billboard advertisement banner viewed by millions of people in less than a day.
Advertising Is The Internet
by
blunte
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· Score: 2, Informative
It should be obvious that most free websites exist just as advertising delivery vehicles. In fact, that's the foundation of the new web.
Create a new free web architecture to hold user-submitted data, and stick ads on the site.
-- .sigs are for post^Hers.
Re:Advertising Is The Internet
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You do realize it costs a tremendous amount of money to build and maintain such a web site (especially like YouTube where bandwidth and storage requirements are huge)... right? On the other hand, you're right - HOW DARE THEY make money from someone else by giving you something for free! That HURTS you somehow, right?!
Re:Advertising Is The Internet
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blunte
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· Score: 1
Where in my comment did I say that making money with ads was wrong? Someone's touchy?
-- .sigs are for post^Hers.
Re:Advertising Is The Internet
by
mgblst
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· Score: 1
Well, it is a bit much to expect the unverisities to have to pay for every site, so business got involved. And funnily enough, there came a time when they wanted to make money out of it.
Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
SmallFurryCreature
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Advertising to pay for everything. Offcourse in a way it does, youtube has been paid for by advertising already although the ads so far have been on other sites. In the end however it was Google that bought it and presumably paid those who had been paying for the massive amounts of bandwidth.
Overlays on video off 10 seconds, 15 seconds after the video started, at the bottom of the screen.
Mmm, what to say about that, something that sounds thoughtful, intresting and will garner me the praise of the internet.
Oh I know:
YUCK
Do NOT want!
I seen something like this before on a torrented becker episode, after commerical breaks (Fellow europeans, if you ever complained about ads in the EU, just watch an american show with the commericals left in. You will be hugging you commericial channels advertising staff before the show is out) it showed some ad that popped some weird cartoon dude up to sell something. God knows what it was for but taking up 50% of the screen was kinda annoying.
While this may astound yanks, the bottom of the screen has its uses for subtitles. So basically subs are out while the ad plays?
I can well understand googles desire to get some revenue going, I am currently watching old columbo eps on youtube all for free except my ISP fee and whatever google has to pay to upload several gigs of data.
But I hate ads. It is not just that they get in the way, it is not just that 99% of them insult the intelligence of a republican, it is not that 99% of them are irrelevant to me (jay leno site shows me clips for american companies while I am in holland, even the best ad is not going to get me to fly to the US to buy something), that they cost me bandwidth, that the distract from what I want to do.
It is ALL of the above.
So good luck google, but remember one thing, you got big because people NO longer were prepared to put up with the crud laden, ad riddled sites of previous search engines. You wouldn't be the first dotcom to commit suicide by ad agency.
Remember, youtube is handy to watch columbo eps, but a torrent wouldn't cost me that much more bandwidth, I would get them in higher res, better sounds and in one long segment. Perhaps google nows this, perhaps this is the end of youtube.
--
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Complaining about commercials on becker & columbo episodes is like complaining that someone smeared shit on your shit.
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
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FiloEleven
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· Score: 1
While this may astound yanks, the bottom of the screen has its uses for subtitles. Why would this surprise us? There's deaf people in the US too, y'know.;)
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
And apparently, a transparent overlap that only lasts for ten seconds is enough to COMPLETELY DESTROY THE UTILITY OF SUBTITLES.
THIS MAKES GOOGLE WORSE THAN HITLER!
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
felipekk
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· Score: 1
So good luck google, but remember one thing, you got big because people NO longer were prepared to put up with the crud laden, ad riddled sites of previous search engines. Exactly. And thats where Google wins, because they've managed to get revenue from ads in the search market without annoying people.
Based on that I truly believe that Google is going to change YouTube into a profiting market without being like the others, "crud laden"* video sites.
* I have no idea what this means.**
** I'm from Brazil.
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
cromar
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· Score: 1
it is not just that 99% of them insult the intelligence of a republican
Yeah... just imagine how the rest of us feel!!
Joking aside, if I have to see one more commercial full of lies and glitz... ooh shiny and only 3 easy payments...
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
babyrat
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· Score: 1
I'm guessing for every one of you, there are a thousand people who just won't care.
Will the advertisers care if they are advertising to one less person per thousand? Nope. Thus will Google care? Nope.
Bye - don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
16384
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· Score: 1
Fellow europeans, if you ever complained about ads in the EU, just watch an american show with the commericals left in. You will be hugging you commericial channels advertising staff before the show is out So true! I have recently been to the US and couldn't believe how bad the situation was! There is no separator between the program and the ads, so every 10 minutes or so the program abruptly changes to and ad. The best TV series are broadcasted on prime time, but they are impossible to watch.
On the plus side, almost everything has close captioning, even the live programs.
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
badboy_tw2002
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· Score: 1
Those are rarely direct advertisements. Generally they're the station advertizing some other program that's coming on next or some big event they're trying to rustle up support for. If it does have a product tie in its usually in conjunction with a sponsorship for a program, like "Doritos Presents Some New Show", "Ford Half-time Break", etc. I do agree its annoying and its probably because of perceived loss from Tivo users. I do actually prefer it though to an even worse trend of product placement.
Adverts on the screen won't ruin the narrative of a show, and they won't be there in the DVD. Having the characters pause for a second and talk about how cool their new car or gadget is is freaking terrible. I'd promise to watch one commercial a week on my tivo if they would stop that crap.
Oh, and on a funny note the Simpons movie makes fun of the overlay trend in the movie. I won't give it away, but it gave me a laugh:)
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
zenkonami
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· Score: 1
Exactly! Better to go bankrupt by having no revenue source for this expensive acquisition than to run off a few of your users who expect some kind of free lunch!
Re:Ah, I miss the web 1.0 days
by
IConrad01
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· Score: 1
crud = shit, crap, useless detritus. laden = encrusted, coated, burdened with.
"I woke up with my eyes crud laden; when I wiped the 'sleep' out of my eyes, I felt much more awake."
Google! Look out!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
That shark is about to harpoon you!
I guess this was bound to happen...
by
Spy+der+Mann
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· Score: 2, Insightful
But I kinda agree with it. The ads aren't intrusive (you're watching VIDEO, right? We're accustomed to watch COMMERCIALS in VIDEO for ages), and they support the service. I wouldn't mind watching the next model of Gillette Aftershave before watching my favorite clip.
However, the ads shouldn't last longer than 5% of the video in question, even if they're little watermarks on the bottom right corner. And one more thing: The ads must NOT be part of the.flv!!! I want to be able to download them and not having to watch the commercial over and over and over.
I guess we'll have to wait to see how things go.
Spend Free Time... aka TV
by
xtracto
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
You already did that. That is what TV is all about isn't it? killing some time while watching soups, "news" or cartoons. The only difference is that... mmm... well, I guess there is no difference at all form the viewer point of view. The only difference from the "content provider" point of view is that I guess the guys showing the "my neighbour falling LOLZ!" video won't get a penny for the ads embeded in their video...
I remeber signing in in YouTube like page which actually payed you for each click a page with your video or picture generated... something similar would be fair in the case of video advertisment dont you think?
-- Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Re:Spend Free Time... aka TV
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I remeber signing in in YouTube like page which actually payed you for each click a page with your video or picture generated... something similar would be fair in the case of video advertisment dont you think?
Sure, if the content you're uploading is 100% your own copyright material rather than uploading a movie you ripped and decided to share, the latest sitcom show of the week, or a subtitled version of a foreign show you have no legal rights to.
The only way I'd say that'd be a good idea (And avoiding predictable lawsuits) is if to qualify for a chunk of the advertising revenue from your uploads, you had to be a subscriber of some sort and anything you upload had to be validated as non-infringing on someone else's copyright before it was made available to everyone.
Re:Spend Free Time... aka TV
by
tepples
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· Score: 1
Sure, if the content you're uploading is 100% your own copyright material How can anyone guarantee this? If you write and perform your own music for a video, what keeps the incumbent music publishers from accusing you of subconscious copying?
I don't know how to tell you this, but if you're complaining about using the mouse while browsing the web, you're fighting a losing battle. Yes, there are ways to navigate through websites without the mouse, but most of the time using the mouse is easier. With modern web design techniques, the mouse is becoming more essential to web browsing, not less so. Maybe you should invest in a nice mouse pad with a wrist rest, or perhaps a trackball.
Proof editors themselves don't read the article
by
SilentChris
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· Score: 0, Redundant
"I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time."
Well, it's a good thing you don't have to, because the ads are overlaid at the very bottom of the video. There's no "waiting". E.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcGUKtzBCbA Similar to when a television station advertises another program while you're watching one. Not to mention, you can close them (wish I could do that with the television advertisements).
Thanks for the link. Doesn't seem nearly as annoying as it sounded in the article.
How Long Till The Spoofs?
by
Silent+Node
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· Score: 2, Funny
Isn't the most obvious offshoot of this that people will parody the new ads. Then those parodies will become popular. The result will be companies paying for an ad that will be immediately followed by a lampoon of that same ad. Will Google be sink into true evil and allow companies to decide that their commercial won't be run next to a spoof of their commercial.
From a spoof-production point of view this actually presents some interesting possibilities.
-- "You can't win. You can't break even. You can't quit."
-A. Ginsberg
Yay, another thing I have to click on to get the video? Like when their stupid menu decides to minimize the showing video. I really really really HATE using my mouse, its the source of carpel tunnel syndrome and it pisses me off when a website forces me to shift to mouse.
Somebody call a whaaambulance! He's going into whiniac arrest!
They found a way to reduce bandwidth.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Figures that they would just destroy the fun stuff to solve it though.
Why is this evil? Because making money off the minor annoyance of your consumer base (who aren't paying a cent to you) is quite evidently evil.
-- You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Revenue vs. increased liability
by
jhRisk
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't get it. Youtube is somewhat held harmless (TBD) by claiming they simply have a repository of videos controlled by the masses for which they're happy to take down content that violates DMCA once "alerted" by the copyright holder. Their position, I thought, was that they don't deal with the content granularly and its too vast to hold them responsible.
To date Youtube has provided somewhat simple features such as ranking and searching however if they're now doing work above and beyond that by inserting ads on popular videos, measuring impressions and then being compensated does that not imply a more intimate relationship with the content? Does that not then increase their liability with respect to not hosting content that violates DMCA?
Also, am I the only one who thinks the only truly "good" Youtube content includes some degree of DMCA violation? Unless you make your own movie (which 99.9% of the time will completely suck) some portion such as the music will belong to someone else.
-- That's just my POV... no more, no less.
Re:Revenue vs. increased liability
by
cdrguru
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· Score: 1
Welcome to the new creativity. It is just like the old creativity, except with less... creativity!
Really, if the only "good" content is stolen content what is the point? Are we so culturally inept that we have to have people carving clips out of existing music to make new music? When will "sampling" come to video productions?
Re:Revenue vs. increased liability
by
xhrit
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· Score: 1
i take it you have never seen 'starship troopers 2'?
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
mcpkaaos
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· Score: 1
I really really really HATE using my mouse
If you are a Windows user, the Accessibility control panel applet enables you to control the pointer with your keyboard. I'm sure other operating systems offer similar functionality.
And it probably happens more then you think. YouTube was just a particularly high-profile example.
-- Quack, quack.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
UbuntuDupe
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· Score: 1
Neat, thanks for pointing that out. However, the acceleration is pitifully slow, even at the fastest setting, and holding ctrl makes the jumps too coarse.
awww, da poor widdle baby can't wuse his widdle mouse...aww...stupid websites making me use the mouse while i'm on a GODDAMN COMPUTER. awwww my poor widdle fingers..awwww..AWWWWWWW
God forbid someone make a profit. I suppose Google should just survive off of funds from the People's Republic of America while promoting peace and love along with open source software. If you'd crane your head out of the bong smoke once in a while, you might actually consider a world in which people have a right to invest and produce capitol. Furthermore, people with ideas like yours kill open source- "Oh hey Google supports open source that means they have to adhere to these strict anarcho-communist guidelines or I call them evil", why don't you call out someonewhodeserves it for once?
-- +5, Truth
If they share the ad revenue, it could be good.
by
tinrobot
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The article mentions something about "partnerships" and I assume that means the ad revenue will be shared.
That could be good, because it means it's possible for someone who produces popular and engaging content to be rewarded financially without having to kiss the feet of big corporate media.
Re:If they share the ad revenue, it could be good.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Content authors that choose not to have ads should still have that option. There's a lot of home grown content on youtube that currently has no embedded ads. The content provider should ultimately have the choice in determining whether or not they want ads (commercials) displayed in their content (and at what points). Furthermore, a portion of the ad revenue should go directly to the content provider in the same style as adsense.
This scheme would probably really start to kill broadcast television since a show can now use youtube as the medium to make money rather than regular TV time. It would also make it much easier for content providers to connect to viewers as the viewers now ultimately are in control of revenue streams and once a video is published, it remains there always (or at least we hope for a very long time).
Re:My only requirements are
by
tepples
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· Score: 1
The content provider should ultimately have the choice in determining whether or not they want ads (commercials) displayed in their content (and at what points). Unless YouTube makes the "no ads" checkbox available only to paid subscribers to YouTube video hosting.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
Splab
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· Score: 1
It is not the act of using the mouse that troubles me, its the change from having both hands on the keyboard to have one on mouse - do this enough times and I start getting a burning sensation up the arm (very very unpleasant), so trackball writ rest etc. doesn't help.
I can play games for hours - or type/program for hours, but shifting from keyboard to mouse too often and I'm in trouble.
Although their current idea doesn't sound terribly annoying (a small overlay at the bottom), a much better solution would be to just add text ads around the video. Forced ads don't gel with youtubes philosiphy of watching your choice of stuff in your free time, it would better match the sites flow if you were able to view ads at your choice as well, which text ads to the side would allow.
a world in which people have a right to invest and produce capitol.
I don't know about you, but every capitol I have every seen has been produced by a government of one kind of another. Hey, if Google tried to make another Washington D.C, wouldn't Congress have something to say about that?
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
Buran
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· Score: 1
Have you tried one of those systems that tracks where you look? Perhaps something like that would help you.
Others have suggested mousepads or mice with wrist rests, or trackballs. Also worth a look.
Too bad more browsers don't accomomdate keyboard users well... Firefox, for instance, as good as it is, still skips some form elements when tabbing through forms.
Just keep them small
by
ohmypolarbear
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· Score: 4, Interesting
This sounds like the ads that appear on the screen during a TV program. Hopefully they will stay small and unobtrusive, unlike what has happened with the TV version. A quick history of those, starting sometime in the 90's:
Small, often transparent network logo in the bottom corner of the screen
Static or scrolling single line of text with either a "this portion sponsored by:" message or a reminder of upcoming shows
Same text, but encased in prettier graphics that take up a little more screen real estate. Transitions smoothing the entrance of the graphics allow the eye to adjust and continue watching the show without being disturbed too much.
More lines of text added, perhaps with the rest of the evening's schedule. Also animations appear, but they're not very distracting.
LARGE graphics take up a significant portion of a corner of the screen, making it impossible to "squeeze" the tv show itself and preserve the whole scene. Visual information is lost and the show is negatively impacted.
More complex animations and graphics that aren't immediately recognizable as text boxes intrude farther into the picture and/or require significant viewer attention to determine whether the object that just appeared is part of the show or not.
Large, intricate animations with sound effects cause the loss of both visual and auditory information and cause the viewer to change the channel and/or shoot the tv. Sound effects? Seriously? What's the point of watching the show anymore when you can't see or hear what's going on?
As long as the YouTube ads stay reasonably close to the top of this list, we'll be ok. It won't require too much effort to disregard the ads if we're not interested in them, and they probably won't obscure the videos themselves. If they creep towards the bottom, then people will stop using YouTube, at least for content from the "partners" that allow ads to be put in.
Please don't be any more silly than you have to be. I hope you're not one of the many astroturfer comments on this page fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion. Astroturfers are lying scum.
If an ad is unobtrusive it hasn't worked. The whole point of an ad is to be noticed and acted upon and Google will want to maximize that value, the value to their shareholders.
Just like google is currently doing on their search pages and elsewhere they'll keep on ratcheting up and "targeting" the ad's until the net value of the content to most viewers is marginally just above zero. This gradual increase is a shell game to fool viewers into accepting more ad's. Remember, viewers are not the consumer, they're the product they sell to the advertisers. In other words, just like broadcast TV, YouTube will be a wasteland. Just give it time.
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
Google already runs ads pretty much everywhere
by
Flipao
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· Score: 0
And nobody minds. The ads that show up on my Gmail account are small and unintrusive text links just outside the main layout. If the ads they run are short (or even better, short tweened flash anims) it shouldn't really be a problem, on the other hand, it you have to sit through a 30 second coke ad before watching a vid then why even bother.
Like the network TV promos....
by
xgr3gx
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The ad overlay is probably no worse than those ridiculous network promos that take up almost a good 1/4 of you TV screen in the lower right corner.
I read an article (I think it was here on slashdot) that streaming video traffic this year is greater than all internet traffic from the year 2000. I'm sure youtube is partly responsible for that.
Lets not forget, disk space, servers, and bandwidth aren't free, even though use of youtube is.
We can't hold it against them too much for wanting to earn a little cash to offset the tremendous resources it must take to power youtube.
Streaming flash players are popping up everywhere. If people get pissed at youtube, we can start freetube, with no ads.
Re:Like the network TV promos....
by
Foolicious
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· Score: 1
If people get pissed at youtube, we can start freetube, with no ads. Sure, but you said yourself that there's no free lunch. So if you somehow catch lightning in a bottle and pull a bunch of users away from youtube for freetube, then you'll eventually have to resort to using advertising (or something else annoying) to pay for it.
-- Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
Re:Like the network TV promos....
by
xgr3gx
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· Score: 1
Hahah, yeah, and thus starting a cycle, where an offshoot of freetube2 starts, then mytube then... you get the idea:)
I agree. It's not the ad that is annoying on some video sites, but the duration. NFL.com now runs 30 second ads, which is way too long to watch a 90 second video. If it were a 10 second ad, it could get most of the point across without being nearly as intrusive. One newspaper I used had the cool feature of running a ~10 second ad AFTER the video. That was not intrusive at all, yet they still get a lot of ad impressions from me, just because you usually aren't always *immediately *clicking to the next video. As for Google, their ads have tended to be pretty innocuous, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Then again, I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't disable non-animated banner ads, since I want to give the site a fair chance at paying for itself.
This guy is suggesting more intrusive data recollection; in a subtle way.
data recollection is from last decade? no one cares any more? ah ok. nevermind.
They are more obstrusive
by
xtracto
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually those kind of advertisements that appear on top of the real content are more obstrusive than the full commercials. I started to see those ads in Football matches some years ago. As it is not possible to break for 30 seconds ads during a football(soccer) match TV companies started adding those ads strips at the bottom of the image. They really suck because they prevent you from watching some part of the the content. They blatantly interfere with the actual content of the video.
I find those ads similarly disguisting to the times when a radio presenter would turn the volume of a song down to say some kind of crap... moreover, imagine listening to Queen's "Dont Lose your head" in Last.FM and suddenly starting to listen "buy viagra! buy viagra! buy cheap viagra!" on top of it.
-- Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Re:They are more obstrusive
by
Some_Llama
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· Score: 1
"They really suck because they prevent you from watching some part of the the content. They blatantly interfere with the actual content of the video."
I have to agree, i would rather see an ad (and i HATE ads) in the beginning or at the end or on the page itself.. problem is, all of those methods are easily bypassed.. the problem with the overlay it that it inevitably blocks something important.. last night i was watching a movie (The godfather) that had subtitles for the parts when they spoke italian.. along came an ad that covered the bottom of the screen for about 15 seconds.. needless to say i missed an important part of the dialog..
(yes yes i own the dvds and have seen it many times.. but it happens more and more frequently of late.. esp with subtitled movies).
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
skiflyer
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· Score: 1
So buy a keyboard with a built in trackpoint.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
Perseid
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· Score: 1
You start a site with live streams of an MPG and I will visit your site to watch the server explode.
Is it just me, or is the decision to make the adds semi-transparent a deliberate way to make it possible for third parties to strip the ads away? I.e, if the translucency algorithm is "loss-less" you could combine data from two videos to figure out what the ads look like and then subtract that value from the feed to produce the original content. I doubt Google would make their videos have this "feature" by mistake, so maybe they are deliberately trying to encourage people to write tools that strip it away, knowing that the majority of users won't bother installing it. End result would be google gets money, most people don't care, and those who do can strip it away using third party tools. I'm starting to think that unlike the record industry lawyers, Google's people actually know what they are doing...
Of course they know, and that`s why it is transparent: subtitles and other useful information, although I seriously doubt that striping away thing.
Re:semi-transparent...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I haven't seen the ads but I'd assume they come from different servers, in which case one can simply add those servers with 127.0.0.1 address to one's hosts file and that's all.
Let's see how long will it take Customize Google folks to add a "Block YouTube Ads" option to the extension:-)
Google you've done well. I can still watch your videos unlike ifilm where it takes 2 minutes to watch a 1 minute video. I can respect your choice to advertise since I can get rid of the add which means I can watch that kid fall off his skateboard and see him hit the ground. I'll be interested to see how this works in the long run.
That's one of the (many) reasons I got a ThinkPad instead of some n00bPad. The trackpoint is like.. well.. like playing with a nipple 24/7. Just great.
-- c++;/* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
I run a website that's add free. I foot the bills myself. I have a donation button that mostly takes up space. I don't mind because it's an arts and music site and aside from all the revenue pumping ventures out there (which is where I work to pay the bill in the first place) there is also a lot of amazing music and art. Which I felt obliged to give something back to. So while many, many sites use advertising to offset the costs of operation or simply to generate revenue there are also some sites that run because they want to push an agenda. Maybe make a little bit of a difference.
-- Quack, quack.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
Xtravar
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· Score: 1
I've wanted this for years, but no company has really brought it to market- a split keyboard. Imagine an ergonomic keyboard that's been halved so that your arms may rest further apart than with a typical keyboard. It wouldn't be hard to put a mouse or trackball contraption on the right side (or left side for lefties) to minimize arm movement. Or even have the keyboard shards strap to your wrists so that you can type in whatever position you prefer.
I know they make those one-handed keyboards, but two hands would be an easier transition for the general populous who doesn't want to learn a new typing pattern.
You can do this with an IBM M15 ergonomic keyboard -- a friend of mine has each half mounted on one of the arms of his chair.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
Splab
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· Score: 1
The best keyboard I have had was a logitech wireless from the MX series, it had a scroll wheel on the left side a long with some multifunktion buttons, very handy (yes yes, geeks surf pr0n lets assume its for left handed surfing (look at a sibling to my GP)). Instead of having to move my right hand to the page up and page down buttons which requires me to lift the arm I could just twist the left hand to scroll down on a page, but they stopped making that keyboard - now I got a G15 which has programmable buttons on the left side which kinda works like the scroll button.
Too bad more browsers don't accomomdate keyboard users well... Firefox, for instance, as good as it is, still skips some form elements when tabbing through forms. Plus, it changes which elements are "acceptable" to tab through on different platforms! Firefox on MSWin != Ffx OS X != Ffx *nix. Thank gods we have Opera.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
stdarg
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· Score: 1
I suppose that would also explain the burning sensation in his arm:/
Google is evil all around
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I would blog about this issue, but my blog account at google (blogger) is down. I would have emailed everyone on this, but my gmail was hacked a few weeks back. I would have sent you links to videos that I have purchased on this topic, but Google decided I don't own them anymore.
Can't wait to see what G adds to the video space....
You won't read the commercials like you won't RTFA
by
ImaLamer
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· Score: 1
The "ads" are going to be overlays, not commercials. YouTube/Google knows that commercials don't work. Pre-rolls make people look elsewhere. From what I've read the ads seem to non-intrusive and can be closed by clicking an "x".
Does it suck that we are stuck with ads: not really if you want to keep seeing videos on YouTube (that aren't produced in Hollywood).
Viddy well, my brothers
by
Dogtanian
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· Score: 2, Funny
By closing my eyes I am circumventing the ad delivery mechanism. Umm... am I the only one thinking of *that* scene in "A Clockwork Orange"?
I sure as hell hope Google aren't, otherwise we'll be seeing a method of forced advertising that makes Tivo's "no skipping ads" look like a six-year-old's tea party.:-/
-- "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Very unobtrusive - diverts the eye briefly as it appears, then is small enough to not bother you once you look back to the video.
No sound - very important! Nothing is more annoying than those new TV overlay ads that incorporate sound, especially when meaningful dialog is taking place.
It has an X button - I was worried about this one, but as soon as the ad appears you can click the "x" to make it vanish permanently. The "x" is easy to hit with the mouse, and since the video has just started 15 seconds previous, you haven't sat back in your chair to watch yet. Very easy to use.
Targetted ads are better than untargetted ads! The less bright-eyed white-clad models I see hopping around the screen waving tampons and telling me about whatever brand they happen to be using at the time the better.
Also, the fact that the "x" button appears in the same place every time makes you wonder - how hard would it be to write a Firefox plugin that fakes a mouse click at the proper position 15 seconds into the video? Doesn't sound too tough, but that's not my field.
It might have worked for tv, but the main reason sites like YouTube are successful is because of the LACK of advertising. If suddenly I have to sit through 15-second clips of "and now, a word from our sponsors", I'm simply moving on to the next site that offers commercial free, low quality, dubious content time wasting.
If someone could stand up against the juggernaut that is cable television and offer all shows without advertising at either a high fee or a pay-per-view, I'd gladly sign up. Something like the commercial-free movie channels, but for ALL television content. Hell, I can't remember the last time I saw an ad and thought, "man, I gotta go out and buy that". Advertising is running the risk of becoming obsolete, because they are stuck in the 50-year-old paradigm that is no longer working in the Internet age.
one significant problem (ie, the DMCA)
by
Triv
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I can see at least one significant problem with this.
Let's say I upload something I don't control the copyright on, something like fansubbed anime. Let's assume it falls through youtube's copyright enforcement cracks and stays up, and youtube overlays an ad on top of it. YouTube is therefore generating a profit from copyrighted material they don't have the license to distribute. That's a helluva can of worms, wriggly legal ones, one that YouTube knows about - there aren't ads on the actual video pages for precisely that reason.
Wonder how they're gonna get around that without losing their DMCA safeharbor provisions. S'gonna be interesting to watch.
No! Revenue is not evil! Revenue is what allows sites like YouTube to exist, and it's gotta come from somewhere. Revenue at the major expense of customers could be construed as evil, but only if the customers had no alternatives. But adding ads to YouTube? Certainly not. It was a long time coming.
-- You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Speaking of personal views on evil
by
ClosedSource
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
I think charging people for service and support is evil even if you provide the source code. Actually, I don't really believe that, but I tire of the strange argument that charging a fee for service on software you didn't write is OK (profit!) but selling your application and keeping the source private is a sin.
Next thing you know these bastards will be putting advertisements; before, in the middle, and after our favorite television programs. We must stop it on teh inter webs or it will reach the real world!
-- You can't take the sky from me.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
letxa2000
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· Score: 1
I'm personally getting sick of CNN presenting half of their headline stories as video. I just want the friggin' text, that's why I'm browsing a news site rather than watching their TV channel. Usually I have to wait an hour or two an the same story appears on some other news site in text form.
You pay $15 a month (or whatever) to access youtube.
I'd rather ads, thanks. If they get too obtrusive, I'll vote with my feet and go elsewhere - but I'm sure not going to go to a site that charges me to access if there's one I can go to for free, and the price I pay is a brief ad.
Ad's pay for nothing. They're just a shell game that hides the true cost to you. Right - it hides the cost by removing it as an actual, tangible, money-based cost.
You still pay. Twice.
You pay for the ad in your time and attention and you pay for the increased price of the product to pay for the ad. I'm not sure what you mean here; I'm talking about using advertising to replace, not supplement, the cost of a product.
"I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time."
What, you mean, like watching cable TV?
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
skeeto
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· Score: 1
Actually, there is a mouseless browsing addon for Firefox that allows you to easily browse without a mouse. I use it all the time on my laptop where I do everything I need to do without touching a mouse (I hate touchpads). Emacs, Pidgin, rxvt, and Firefox with this addon (my main applications) can used just as quickly, if not quicker, without a mouse.
The only problem is Flash stuff, such as Youtube. You can't control the video playback without a mouse by any means I know about. You also cannot follow Flash links either. However, this is no problem for me as I do not have Flash installed (you can watch Youtube without Flash).
To get back to the article a bit, it seems that the "commercial" is placed on top by the Flash player, not embedded in the video. This means watch with a different player (mplayer or vlc), you will not see these ads.
Slashdotters dont mind ads
by
Rsriram
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· Score: 1
I see that slashdot is using "evil" advertisements but slashdotters dont seem to mind it. Sad that websites have expenses. I wish they would invent a website that ran for free.
-- O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
If I can just keep away from my bong I will bite - I pondered when I wrote the post whether to include the word advertising.
Agreed advertsing is needed in a free and democrtic society - the problem for me comes when a company begins to 'Market' their products/services. If I have a problem - I will pay somebody to solve it - thats how I get paid [open source developer] - I solve peoples problems. I advertise my services in areas where people are expecting adverts - I don't force my message into people's faces when they are looking at one of my customers websites or using a PBX I installed. I don't aim to manipulate people in order for them to purchase my services which they maybe don't need.
Investing and producing captial doesn't seem that open-source when a large chuck of said captial is not shared equally, your examples are more valid than compared to google - google does have real value attached to it through the services it provides - they do also keep a lot of _good_ developers producing outstanding code - this doesn't mean because they use 'marketing' that marketing is not evil
I am not a master of economics but more of a 'hippy type' - quite young and naive aswell - since I was a kid [maybe I have been scared] I have seen money and wealth as being nothing more than a tool of control - it is not needed for a society to survive yet offers efficiency and organization which helps survival - but people seem to be inherently greedy - and the darwin inside them wants to make more money than the next man.....
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
makomk
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· Score: 1
Where in TFA does it say that? It says that clicking on the overlayed ad plays a full-blown video ad, and that it'll disappear after 10 seconds if ignored, but as far as I can tell it doesn't say that there's any way of manually dismissing the ad.
Re:Commercials really bug me...
by
fimbulvetr
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· Score: 1
I read it in a forbes article prior to the submission, unfortunately I cannot find that source now. Here is an alternative one:
I have a Firefox extension that makes the layout better like in Google Video, and as a side effect it has no ads, because it uses an older version of the player.
There are ads on slashdot, and you're all still here! Ads on YouTube won't change much. People will whine while they wait to watch their videos. And now they'll waste an additional (insert ad time here) of work time doing it. That's about it.
-- You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Evil(TM) is a registered trademark of Microsoft
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Evil(TM) is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. You may not wish, think or practice EVIL without express written permission of Microsoft. By existing of atomic particles you are bound by the terms of this license.
Just because you use lynx doesn't mean you don't have a capable display. Theres no reason it couldnt shell to a gui display (local or remote, via $DISPLAY). I think some people would actually prefer that.
Of course it would work infinitely better if people were embeding video directly instead of wrapping it in flash, but you could probably rig up some kind of detection to strip down wrapper/downloaders into just the flv which mplayer will then play happily.
-- Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive.
Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Slashdot Mirror
"I'll never view YouTube again"
"Google isn't supposed to be evil!"
"Way to ruin YouTube!"
ad nauseum
I, for one, welcome our new ad presenting overlords.
"Not like YouTube ever owed you anything"
"Google's business is advertising"
"Sure, numa-like videos made YouTube sooooo... myspace?"
Thank goodness! I was starting to miss commercials when I watched shows on YouTube. Maybe Google can talk to all those BitTorrent guys about getting ads in those shows too. Hopefully it'll be very well targetted too, like luxury cars and tampons!
-Chris
them to spend 1.65 BILLION dollars on something if they didn't have a revenue source in mind? The existing business model of YouTube was...oh wait, there wasn't actually a business model unless selling to some bigger company counts.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
I really don't mind ads on the side of the page. Hell, I don't even mind flash ads if they are not so big and without sound (aghh). But having to watch 30 sec ads before a video, just to see something that I'm not even sure I will like, this is a think I don't tolerate. Oh well... Money is king.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
How will Google try to prevent users from circumventing the ads? I don't think the "if" is even a question. And does this represent a move towards Evil(tm)?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
_______|-------|______
shark --------------> google
I do have a point. Google has been for some time shifted any focus from innovation to monetization. Are they really losing that much money that they need this revenue?
Damn lameness filter. It disagrees with the ratio of my 'junk' characters to 'meaningful' characters. Maybe I should just spend this time inciting violence form the grammar nazis?
Website Hosting
I think YouTube is fantastic -- I can grab snippets of information that I'm interested in, plus also have the option to search for proam video from events that normally don't get broadcast in the MSM. I think YouTube should offer some sort of "revenue sharing" options, though. This would quickly destroy the MSM as pro-am or pro videographers and filmographers could find income for their ventures.
I'd prefer to see YouTube offer a "subscriber" option -- pay $x/month or $x/GB transferred to skip ads of all sorts. Sure, you can block some ads, but the video inserts you can't. Flash Video is capable of skipping segments based on server-data, such as seeing if a person has a subscription and if they have free gigs left. I'd happily pay for my video snippets -- even moreso if part of my subscription went to the video author or "owner."
One-way TV is too limiting -- either you get all a channel's offerings, or you don't get it at all. Some channels are starting to allow PPV on-demand, which is excellent, but I still have to get the full buffet of channels (Digital ones) to get PPV. I'd rather do an a la carte selection, honestly. In 2 years, the amount I'd save over having to maintain a decent media center PC would be worth it for me (considering my media center PC is probably worth $1500 and has to be upgraded every so often) for the limited TV we watch.
YouTube has a huge opportunity here to offer snippets, full shows, and amateur content, while offering the viewer the option to pay up front, or watch ads rather than paying. Bandwidth and hosting ain't free, not even for Google, who can also handle fee distribution between their hosting office and the content "owner." This is a big step to also reduce the need for companies to monitor for copyright infringement, as it gives them the option to host their own stuff and make the pennies per hit.
You should try RTFA. You don't need to sit through commercials before viewing the video you went to view. In fact, the overlayed 1/5th of the lower portion, commercial can be dismissed with one click.
Possessing a fear of ham.
There will be targeted ads WHILE you watch. On the side of of viewing something.
Like watching the new Showtime show "Californication"? Imagine a scene where the character Hank is having sex with some hottie and a condom ad pops up on the side like some bizarre Ad Sense clicky!
This in itself may end illegal downloads forever! Or maybe not...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
These ads are simply overlaid on the bottom portion of the video. They don't last very long, and can be closed at any time.
Since we all knew they had to have ads at some point- this is probably the best way they could have done it.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Yay, another thing I have to click on to get the video? Like when their stupid menu decides to minimize the showing video. I really really really HATE using my mouse, its the source of carpel tunnel syndrome and it pisses me off when a website forces me to shift to mouse.
No waiting to watch the video, and has some nice features to it. While I'm sure most people would say "BOO!" to advertising, Google has made itself known as someone who cares about targeted advertising. I myself have found a number of retailers through Google's contextual advertising which I have patronized.
I guess most people have become disenfranchised with the dubious nature of national adverts for weight loss pills and whatnot, which is understandable. Publishing companies that allow such advertising into their products are doing their customers a disservice, as well as the industry. Look at what it has brought us - the necessity for ad blocking on the web, TiVO, etc.. Who knows if those of us in the publishing industry will ever be able to regain the trust of our consumers (I work in the newspaper industry).
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
WTF Google. Those are the most annoying type of internet ads. Even more annoying than "interactive" Flash shit. There really has to be a better solution.
Of course, most of the best on there isn't the most popular, so that's some comfort at least.
What they should do is run a 2-5 second image ad before video clips, that is is no way intrusive and I'm sure companies would love to pay to have a billboard advertisement banner viewed by millions of people in less than a day.
It should be obvious that most free websites exist just as advertising delivery vehicles. In fact, that's the foundation of the new web.
Create a new free web architecture to hold user-submitted data, and stick ads on the site.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Advertising to pay for everything. Offcourse in a way it does, youtube has been paid for by advertising already although the ads so far have been on other sites. In the end however it was Google that bought it and presumably paid those who had been paying for the massive amounts of bandwidth.
Overlays on video off 10 seconds, 15 seconds after the video started, at the bottom of the screen.
Mmm, what to say about that, something that sounds thoughtful, intresting and will garner me the praise of the internet.
Oh I know:
YUCK
Do NOT want!
I seen something like this before on a torrented becker episode, after commerical breaks (Fellow europeans, if you ever complained about ads in the EU, just watch an american show with the commericals left in. You will be hugging you commericial channels advertising staff before the show is out) it showed some ad that popped some weird cartoon dude up to sell something. God knows what it was for but taking up 50% of the screen was kinda annoying.
While this may astound yanks, the bottom of the screen has its uses for subtitles. So basically subs are out while the ad plays?
I can well understand googles desire to get some revenue going, I am currently watching old columbo eps on youtube all for free except my ISP fee and whatever google has to pay to upload several gigs of data.
But I hate ads. It is not just that they get in the way, it is not just that 99% of them insult the intelligence of a republican, it is not that 99% of them are irrelevant to me (jay leno site shows me clips for american companies while I am in holland, even the best ad is not going to get me to fly to the US to buy something), that they cost me bandwidth, that the distract from what I want to do.
It is ALL of the above.
So good luck google, but remember one thing, you got big because people NO longer were prepared to put up with the crud laden, ad riddled sites of previous search engines. You wouldn't be the first dotcom to commit suicide by ad agency.
Remember, youtube is handy to watch columbo eps, but a torrent wouldn't cost me that much more bandwidth, I would get them in higher res, better sounds and in one long segment. Perhaps google nows this, perhaps this is the end of youtube.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That shark is about to harpoon you!
But I kinda agree with it. The ads aren't intrusive (you're watching VIDEO, right? We're accustomed to watch COMMERCIALS in VIDEO for ages), and they support the service. I wouldn't mind watching the next model of Gillette Aftershave before watching my favorite clip.
.flv!!! I want to be able to download them and not having to watch the commercial over and over and over.
However, the ads shouldn't last longer than 5% of the video in question, even if they're little watermarks on the bottom right corner. And one more thing: The ads must NOT be part of the
I guess we'll have to wait to see how things go.
I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time.
... mmm ... well, I guess there is no difference at all form the viewer point of view. The only difference from the "content provider" point of view is that I guess the guys showing the "my neighbour falling LOLZ!" video won't get a penny for the ads embeded in their video...
You already did that. That is what TV is all about isn't it? killing some time while watching soups, "news" or cartoons. The only difference is that
I remeber signing in in YouTube like page which actually payed you for each click a page with your video or picture generated... something similar would be fair in the case of video advertisment dont you think?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I don't know how to tell you this, but if you're complaining about using the mouse while browsing the web, you're fighting a losing battle. Yes, there are ways to navigate through websites without the mouse, but most of the time using the mouse is easier. With modern web design techniques, the mouse is becoming more essential to web browsing, not less so. Maybe you should invest in a nice mouse pad with a wrist rest, or perhaps a trackball.
"I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time."
r mat/2100-1024_3-6203802.html?tag=nefd.lede). But I guess it's just easier to toss the article up there and throw in a stupid comment. All about the page views, right?
Well, it's a good thing you don't have to, because the ads are overlaid at the very bottom of the video. There's no "waiting". E.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcGUKtzBCbA Similar to when a television station advertises another program while you're watching one. Not to mention, you can close them (wish I could do that with the television advertisements).
Of course, you would know this if you read the article. Or did a little research with other news sites (CNET has a good overview here: http://news.com.com/YouTube+tests+10-second+ad+fo
Isn't the most obvious offshoot of this that people will parody the new ads. Then those parodies will become popular. The result will be companies paying for an ad that will be immediately followed by a lampoon of that same ad. Will Google be sink into true evil and allow companies to decide that their commercial won't be run next to a spoof of their commercial.
From a spoof-production point of view this actually presents some interesting possibilities.
"You can't win. You can't break even. You can't quit." -A. Ginsberg
Yay, another thing I have to click on to get the video? Like when their stupid menu decides to minimize the showing video. I really really really HATE using my mouse, its the source of carpel tunnel syndrome and it pisses me off when a website forces me to shift to mouse.
Somebody call a whaaambulance! He's going into whiniac arrest!
Figures that they would just destroy the fun stuff to solve it though.
It doesn't sound evil, it just sounds annoying and ruining.
I don't get it. Youtube is somewhat held harmless (TBD) by claiming they simply have a repository of videos controlled by the masses for which they're happy to take down content that violates DMCA once "alerted" by the copyright holder. Their position, I thought, was that they don't deal with the content granularly and its too vast to hold them responsible.
To date Youtube has provided somewhat simple features such as ranking and searching however if they're now doing work above and beyond that by inserting ads on popular videos, measuring impressions and then being compensated does that not imply a more intimate relationship with the content? Does that not then increase their liability with respect to not hosting content that violates DMCA?
Also, am I the only one who thinks the only truly "good" Youtube content includes some degree of DMCA violation? Unless you make your own movie (which 99.9% of the time will completely suck) some portion such as the music will belong to someone else.
That's just my POV... no more, no less.
I really really really HATE using my mouse
If you are a Windows user, the Accessibility control panel applet enables you to control the pointer with your keyboard. I'm sure other operating systems offer similar functionality.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
And it probably happens more then you think. YouTube was just a particularly high-profile example.
Quack, quack.
Neat, thanks for pointing that out. However, the acceleration is pitifully slow, even at the fastest setting, and holding ctrl makes the jumps too coarse.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
awww, da poor widdle baby can't wuse his widdle mouse...aww...stupid websites making me use the mouse while i'm on a GODDAMN COMPUTER. awwww my poor widdle fingers..awwww..AWWWWWWW
God forbid someone make a profit. I suppose Google should just survive off of funds from the People's Republic of America while promoting peace and love along with open source software.
If you'd crane your head out of the bong smoke once in a while, you might actually consider a world in which people have a right to invest and produce capitol. Furthermore, people with ideas like yours kill open source- "Oh hey Google supports open source that means they have to adhere to these strict anarcho-communist guidelines or I call them evil", why don't you call out someone who deserves it for once?
+5, Truth
The article mentions something about "partnerships" and I assume that means the ad revenue will be shared.
That could be good, because it means it's possible for someone who produces popular and engaging content to be rewarded financially without having to kiss the feet of big corporate media.
Content authors that choose not to have ads should still have that option. There's a lot of home grown content on youtube that currently has no embedded ads. The content provider should ultimately have the choice in determining whether or not they want ads (commercials) displayed in their content (and at what points). Furthermore, a portion of the ad revenue should go directly to the content provider in the same style as adsense.
This scheme would probably really start to kill broadcast television since a show can now use youtube as the medium to make money rather than regular TV time. It would also make it much easier for content providers to connect to viewers as the viewers now ultimately are in control of revenue streams and once a video is published, it remains there always (or at least we hope for a very long time).
It is not the act of using the mouse that troubles me, its the change from having both hands on the keyboard to have one on mouse - do this enough times and I start getting a burning sensation up the arm (very very unpleasant), so trackball writ rest etc. doesn't help.
I can play games for hours - or type/program for hours, but shifting from keyboard to mouse too often and I'm in trouble.
Although their current idea doesn't sound terribly annoying (a small overlay at the bottom), a much better solution would be to just add text ads around the video. Forced ads don't gel with youtubes philosiphy of watching your choice of stuff in your free time, it would better match the sites flow if you were able to view ads at your choice as well, which text ads to the side would allow.
I don't know about you, but every capitol I have every seen has been produced by a government of one kind of another. Hey, if Google tried to make another Washington D.C, wouldn't Congress have something to say about that?
Have you tried one of those systems that tracks where you look? Perhaps something like that would help you.
Others have suggested mousepads or mice with wrist rests, or trackballs. Also worth a look.
Too bad more browsers don't accomomdate keyboard users well... Firefox, for instance, as good as it is, still skips some form elements when tabbing through forms.
i am a soviet space shuttle
This sounds like the ads that appear on the screen during a TV program. Hopefully they will stay small and unobtrusive, unlike what has happened with the TV version. A quick history of those, starting sometime in the 90's:
As long as the YouTube ads stay reasonably close to the top of this list, we'll be ok. It won't require too much effort to disregard the ads if we're not interested in them, and they probably won't obscure the videos themselves. If they creep towards the bottom, then people will stop using YouTube, at least for content from the "partners" that allow ads to be put in.
... consider a world in which people have a right to invest and produce capitol... Invest and produce a seat of government? Don't get me started.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol
*Still* negative function...
And nobody minds. The ads that show up on my Gmail account are small and unintrusive text links just outside the main layout. If the ads they run are short (or even better, short tweened flash anims) it shouldn't really be a problem, on the other hand, it you have to sit through a 30 second coke ad before watching a vid then why even bother.
The ad overlay is probably no worse than those ridiculous network promos that take up almost a good 1/4 of you TV screen in the lower right corner.
I read an article (I think it was here on slashdot) that streaming video traffic this year is greater than all internet traffic from the year 2000. I'm sure youtube is partly responsible for that.
Lets not forget, disk space, servers, and bandwidth aren't free, even though use of youtube is.
We can't hold it against them too much for wanting to earn a little cash to offset the tremendous resources it must take to power youtube.
Streaming flash players are popping up everywhere. If people get pissed at youtube, we can start freetube, with no ads.
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
If I don't see advertisements, how will I know what I'm supposed to buy?
And there I thought Google made all its money from advertising all along... silly me.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
But why do you have your hand off the mouse at all when you're browsing around video - ...
Oh.
Gross dude.
Someone is sticking the "googleisevil" on every single article now. Time to turn tags off again, it's not like they've ever been useful.
Seriously what the hell, it's tags, how hard is it to do that right?
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I agree. It's not the ad that is annoying on some video sites, but the duration. NFL.com now runs 30 second ads, which is way too long to watch a 90 second video. If it were a 10 second ad, it could get most of the point across without being nearly as intrusive. One newspaper I used had the cool feature of running a ~10 second ad AFTER the video. That was not intrusive at all, yet they still get a lot of ad impressions from me, just because you usually aren't always *immediately *clicking to the next video. As for Google, their ads have tended to be pretty innocuous, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Then again, I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't disable non-animated banner ads, since I want to give the site a fair chance at paying for itself.
http://slashdot.org/tags/googleisevil
I know, I'll upload a video with the ad XORed onto the lower 1/5th! *evil cackle*
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
This guy is suggesting more intrusive data recollection; in a subtle way.
data recollection is from last decade? no one cares any more? ah ok. nevermind.
Actually those kind of advertisements that appear on top of the real content are more obstrusive than the full commercials. I started to see those ads in Football matches some years ago. As it is not possible to break for 30 seconds ads during a football(soccer) match TV companies started adding those ads strips at the bottom of the image. They really suck because they prevent you from watching some part of the the content. They blatantly interfere with the actual content of the video.
I find those ads similarly disguisting to the times when a radio presenter would turn the volume of a song down to say some kind of crap... moreover, imagine listening to Queen's "Dont Lose your head" in Last.FM and suddenly starting to listen "buy viagra! buy viagra! buy cheap viagra!" on top of it.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
So buy a keyboard with a built in trackpoint.
You start a site with live streams of an MPG and I will visit your site to watch the server explode.
Is it just me, or is the decision to make the adds semi-transparent a deliberate way to make it possible for third parties to strip the ads away? I.e, if the translucency algorithm is "loss-less" you could combine data from two videos to figure out what the ads look like and then subtract that value from the feed to produce the original content. I doubt Google would make their videos have this "feature" by mistake, so maybe they are deliberately trying to encourage people to write tools that strip it away, knowing that the majority of users won't bother installing it. End result would be google gets money, most people don't care, and those who do can strip it away using third party tools. I'm starting to think that unlike the record industry lawyers, Google's people actually know what they are doing...
I always thought declaring something that is morally ambiguous to be evil was stupid.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Then WTF is up with the google ad I just found at the top of the /. homepage!?
Bacterial Vaginosis
Bacterial Vaginosis Gone Forever herbal treatment solves problem
Google you've done well. I can still watch your videos unlike ifilm where it takes 2 minutes to watch a 1 minute video. I can respect your choice to advertise since I can get rid of the add which means I can watch that kid fall off his skateboard and see him hit the ground. I'll be interested to see how this works in the long run.
Someone is sticking the "googleisevil" on every single article now. Time to turn tags off again, it's not like they've ever been useful.
Seriously what the hell, it's tags, how hard is it to do that right?
And how hard is it to get a fucking moderation system right. I've got more karma than your lame-ass mod points.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
That's one of the (many) reasons I got a ThinkPad instead of some n00bPad. The trackpoint is like.. well.. like playing with a nipple 24/7. Just great.
c++;
I run a website that's add free. I foot the bills myself. I have a donation button that mostly takes up space. I don't mind because it's an arts and music site and aside from all the revenue pumping ventures out there (which is where I work to pay the bill in the first place) there is also a lot of amazing music and art. Which I felt obliged to give something back to. So while many, many sites use advertising to offset the costs of operation or simply to generate revenue there are also some sites that run because they want to push an agenda. Maybe make a little bit of a difference.
Quack, quack.
I've wanted this for years, but no company has really brought it to market- a split keyboard. Imagine an ergonomic keyboard that's been halved so that your arms may rest further apart than with a typical keyboard. It wouldn't be hard to put a mouse or trackball contraption on the right side (or left side for lefties) to minimize arm movement. Or even have the keyboard shards strap to your wrists so that you can type in whatever position you prefer.
I know they make those one-handed keyboards, but two hands would be an easier transition for the general populous who doesn't want to learn a new typing pattern.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
You can do this with an IBM M15 ergonomic keyboard -- a friend of mine has each half mounted on one of the arms of his chair.
The best keyboard I have had was a logitech wireless from the MX series, it had a scroll wheel on the left side a long with some multifunktion buttons, very handy (yes yes, geeks surf pr0n lets assume its for left handed surfing (look at a sibling to my GP)). Instead of having to move my right hand to the page up and page down buttons which requires me to lift the arm I could just twist the left hand to scroll down on a page, but they stopped making that keyboard - now I got a G15 which has programmable buttons on the left side which kinda works like the scroll button.
Thank gods we have Opera.
Check out http://dontclick.it/
They have a pretty cool mouse interface that doesn't require any clicking, so (I think) it would avoid CTS.
If you hate using the mouse you should browse with lynx or w3m ;-)
Yeah, there's no way anyone anywhere could be annoyed by advertising.
Unless they're hippies.
Asshat.
and THEN view youtube!!! ;)
do they have a flash plugin for lynx
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Mplayer can show videos in ASCII!
They just killed anime on you tube by removing the subs....
Bastards.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I suppose that would also explain the burning sensation in his arm :/
I would blog about this issue, but my blog account at google (blogger) is down. I would have emailed everyone on this, but my gmail was hacked a few weeks back. I would have sent you links to videos that I have purchased on this topic, but Google decided I don't own them anymore.
Can't wait to see what G adds to the video space....
The "ads" are going to be overlays, not commercials. YouTube/Google knows that commercials don't work. Pre-rolls make people look elsewhere. From what I've read the ads seem to non-intrusive and can be closed by clicking an "x".
Does it suck that we are stuck with ads: not really if you want to keep seeing videos on YouTube (that aren't produced in Hollywood).
Get your Unix fortune now!
I sure as hell hope Google aren't, otherwise we'll be seeing a method of forced advertising that makes Tivo's "no skipping ads" look like a six-year-old's tea party.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
My impressions:
- Very unobtrusive - diverts the eye briefly as it appears, then is small enough to not bother you once you look back to the video.
- No sound - very important! Nothing is more annoying than those new TV overlay ads that incorporate sound, especially when meaningful dialog is taking place.
- It has an X button - I was worried about this one, but as soon as the ad appears you can click the "x" to make it vanish permanently. The "x" is easy to hit with the mouse, and since the video has just started 15 seconds previous, you haven't sat back in your chair to watch yet. Very easy to use.
- Targetted ads are better than untargetted ads! The less bright-eyed white-clad models I see hopping around the screen waving tampons and telling me about whatever brand they happen to be using at the time the better.
Also, the fact that the "x" button appears in the same place every time makes you wonder - how hard would it be to write a Firefox plugin that fakes a mouse click at the proper position 15 seconds into the video? Doesn't sound too tough, but that's not my field.Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Let's say I upload something I don't control the copyright on, something like fansubbed anime. Let's assume it falls through youtube's copyright enforcement cracks and stays up, and youtube overlays an ad on top of it. YouTube is therefore generating a profit from copyrighted material they don't have the license to distribute. That's a helluva can of worms, wriggly legal ones, one that YouTube knows about - there aren't ads on the actual video pages for precisely that reason.
Wonder how they're gonna get around that without losing their DMCA safeharbor provisions. S'gonna be interesting to watch.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I think charging people for service and support is evil even if you provide the source code. Actually, I don't really believe that, but I tire of the strange argument that charging a fee for service on software you didn't write is OK (profit!) but selling your application and keeping the source private is a sin.
Next thing you know these bastards will be putting advertisements; before, in the middle, and after our favorite television programs. We must stop it on teh inter webs or it will reach the real world!
You can't take the sky from me.
I'm personally getting sick of CNN presenting half of their headline stories as video. I just want the friggin' text, that's why I'm browsing a news site rather than watching their TV channel. Usually I have to wait an hour or two an the same story appears on some other news site in text form.
You pay $15 a month (or whatever) to access youtube.
I'd rather ads, thanks. If they get too obtrusive, I'll vote with my feet and go elsewhere - but I'm sure not going to go to a site that charges me to access if there's one I can go to for free, and the price I pay is a brief ad.
"I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time."
What, you mean, like watching cable TV?
Actually, there is a mouseless browsing addon for Firefox that allows you to easily browse without a mouse. I use it all the time on my laptop where I do everything I need to do without touching a mouse (I hate touchpads). Emacs, Pidgin, rxvt, and Firefox with this addon (my main applications) can used just as quickly, if not quicker, without a mouse.
The only problem is Flash stuff, such as Youtube. You can't control the video playback without a mouse by any means I know about. You also cannot follow Flash links either. However, this is no problem for me as I do not have Flash installed (you can watch Youtube without Flash).
To get back to the article a bit, it seems that the "commercial" is placed on top by the Flash player, not embedded in the video. This means watch with a different player (mplayer or vlc), you will not see these ads.
I see that slashdot is using "evil" advertisements but slashdotters dont seem to mind it. Sad that websites have expenses. I wish they would invent a website that ran for free.
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
If I can just keep away from my bong I will bite - I pondered when I wrote the post whether to include the word advertising. Agreed advertsing is needed in a free and democrtic society - the problem for me comes when a company begins to 'Market' their products/services. If I have a problem - I will pay somebody to solve it - thats how I get paid [open source developer] - I solve peoples problems. I advertise my services in areas where people are expecting adverts - I don't force my message into people's faces when they are looking at one of my customers websites or using a PBX I installed. I don't aim to manipulate people in order for them to purchase my services which they maybe don't need. Investing and producing captial doesn't seem that open-source when a large chuck of said captial is not shared equally, your examples are more valid than compared to google - google does have real value attached to it through the services it provides - they do also keep a lot of _good_ developers producing outstanding code - this doesn't mean because they use 'marketing' that marketing is not evil I am not a master of economics but more of a 'hippy type' - quite young and naive aswell - since I was a kid [maybe I have been scared] I have seen money and wealth as being nothing more than a tool of control - it is not needed for a society to survive yet offers efficiency and organization which helps survival - but people seem to be inherently greedy - and the darwin inside them wants to make more money than the next man.....
Where in TFA does it say that? It says that clicking on the overlayed ad plays a full-blown video ad, and that it'll disappear after 10 seconds if ignored, but as far as I can tell it doesn't say that there's any way of manually dismissing the ad.
I read it in a forbes article prior to the submission, unfortunately I cannot find that source now. Here is an alternative one:
http://www.redherring.com/Home/22624
Or they can click a button to make the banner disappear, or simply ignore the banner, which will vanish after 10 seconds.
I have a Firefox extension that makes the layout better like in Google Video, and as a side effect it has no ads, because it uses an older version of the player.
Deus est fatalis
There are ads on slashdot, and you're all still here! Ads on YouTube won't change much. People will whine while they wait to watch their videos. And now they'll waste an additional (insert ad time here) of work time doing it. That's about it.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Evil(TM) is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. You may not wish, think or practice EVIL without express written permission of Microsoft. By existing of atomic particles you are bound by the terms of this license.
Just because you use lynx doesn't mean you don't have a capable display. Theres no reason it couldnt shell to a gui display (local or remote, via $DISPLAY). I think some people would actually prefer that.
Of course it would work infinitely better if people were embeding video directly instead of wrapping it in flash, but you could probably rig up some kind of detection to strip down wrapper/downloaders into just the flv which mplayer will then play happily.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx