Google Mulling Video Ads In Search Results

Bombula writes to let us know that Google is "finally succumbing to the power of the almighty dollar" and getting ready to implement image and video ads in sponsored searches.

Comments

Not "evil"

[gbulmash]

Finally "succumbing to the power of the almighty dollar"??? They gave in to Mammon quite a while ago.

Google displays video ads within a few different AdSense units. I've regularly seen video ads filling 336x280 ad spaces. Putting video ads in search results requires no technical advances. It's more a matter of laying out the search results to achieve the best balance of ad screenspace and content screenspace. So far, Google has done that pretty well with text ads in their search results.

If there's any news in this, it's watching the semantic argument that should result. People love to quote Google's tenet of "do no evil" and accuse Google of violating it wheneverGoogle opens up a new avenue for earning money. But it's not necessarily evil. It's just something they disagree with. And it's interesting, from a sociological perspective, to see how people can regard the opposing party viewpoint, in what are essentially minor disagreements, as "evil".

- Greg

Re:Not "evil"

[Gnostic Ronin]

I'll agree with you. Absolutely not a good move. I don't want to see little movies playing all over my computer screen when I search for something. And judging by other adverts online, not only will they be large, but obnoxious. They'll loop every 30 seconds. All I want is to get the links I'm looking for without being hounded by obnoxious ads.

Re:Not "evil"

[CastrTroy]

The difference between "Evil" and "Not Evil" is only a matter of opinion. Some people would say all ads are evil. Others, text ads are acceptable. Others, would say images with no video. Some would say video is fine, as long as they don't display it overlayed on the content. Other people would have no problem with any ads.

Re:Not "evil"

[gbulmash]

Intent can be as important to determining the degree or label for a crime as the act. Think about it, most American state penal codes have 6-8 different crimes you can be charged with when you kill someone... First through third degree murder, first and second degree manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, etc., etc.

In fact, if you're defending yourself, you can kill someone and not be charged with a crime. But the action is always the same... you killed someone.
Furthermore, "evil" is a moral judgement, so, even if you're not buying into a societal definition, such as exists in a penal code, you're basing it on a religious definition. And the fun part is that the religious definition isn't based on a holy book, it's based on how your particular sect interprets that holy book. There are Muslims who think strapping a bomb to yourself and setting it off inside a school full of children is "evil", but there are others who think that this is what God wants. And, according to most moral codes, what God wants is inherently good.

So, actions are not good or evil in and of themselves. We interpret them as good or evil based on our value sets. Quite often we ascribe those value sets to God, because "God says this is right and this is wrong" carries a lot more power than "I think this is right and this is wrong, but it's just my opinion." Much as it is with beauty, Good and Evil can be in the eye of the beholder too.

- G

Re:Not "evil"

[NickCatal]

If they are anything like the adsense ones they won't be too intrusive at all...

Google isn't filled with idiots who think that they can just put an ad box on the side of their results and not loose respect (and market share)

Personally, I like the sponsored results... I find that a lot of the time the sponsored results are more what I am looking for than the search results. I probably cost those advertisers a fortune by checking out every single one of the ads until I find one I like, but still...

I found my latest printer cartridge via adsense... the store I bought it from had a listing on the top and they were also the most competitive in the way of price... so they got my money thanks to an adsense ad. Of course, now I get emails every week from the store about printer cartridges... bah... stupid "opt-in-by-default" system

Re:Not "evil"

[clarkkent09]

If there's any news in this, it's watching the semantic argument that should result. People love to quote Google's tenet of "do no evil" and accuse Google of violating it wheneverGoogle opens up a new avenue for earning money. But it's not necessarily evil. It's just something they disagree with. And it's interesting, from a sociological perspective, to see how people can regard the opposing party viewpoint, in what are essentially minor disagreements, as "evil".

You can blame google for that. From Google Philosophy page on their site: ahref=http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.ht mlrel=url2html-17653http://www.google.com/corporat e/tenthings.html>

: Number 6 You can make money without doing evil.
...Google has also proven that advertising can be effective without being flashy....

So they are associating not having flashy ads with not being evil. Now that they will have flashy ads that means they are evil. :)

Re:Not "evil"

[bmo]

"The difference between "Evil" and "Not Evil" is only a matter of opinion."

No, the difference between "evil" and "not evil" is the bubble on the output of the gate.

--
BMO

Re:Not "evil"

[heinousjay]

Anyone who says ads are evil has a whacky moral compass, and they're diluting the term.

Re:Not "evil"

[sanyasi]

Furthermore, "evil" is a moral judgement, so, even if you're not buying into a societal definition, such as exists in a penal code, you're basing it on a religious definition. I have to disagree. Morality can exist independent of religion. Many religious people make this mistake of assuming that only religious people have morals.

Re:Not "evil"

[ozmanjusri]

It is completely logical for an omnipotent being to allow something outside itself to exist which also causes things that the omnipotent being itself would not do.

Not if the entity is the definer of all that is good.

The entity would then be permitting evil to occur despite having the power to prevent it. That in itself is evil (see Luke (10:25-37). Allowing evil to occur makes God an accomplice in vile acts, and therefore not pure good.

Re:Not "evil"

[walt-sjc]

First off, I agree to a large extent...

False dichotomy. Maybe you're too young to remember, but there was a time when most sites didn't have ads.

And there was a time before web sites existed at all too, but someone is paying for a site in ALL cases.

Heck, there are still many sites that don't rely on ad revenue.

Sure, but SOMEONE is paying for it. The question is WHO is paying for it? There are sites paid for by "good will", such as a company hosting an open source project, and marketing sites, which is just an advertising expense (the entire site is a giant ad,) but every site costs something, and someone is paying.

The reality is that the content consumers really want isn't free to deliver. Because so many people want it, the site needs some sort of revenue stream to pay for itself due to the hosting costs.

Also, web hosting is getting cheaper and cheaper every day.

Yes, but the number of users is increasing faster than hosting is getting cheaper. It's still fairly expensive to host anything that gets any significant traffic at all. Yes, you can get $5 / month hosting, and no, you can't run YouTube off $5/month hosting.

If a site is really that valuable to me, I'll pay (micropayments?) for the content.

There we go. That IS the ultimate solution - however, we don't have a viable micropayment system right now. Instead, all we have are sites want some sort of monthly / yearly subscription. The situation sucks. Like you however, I found some of the ads out there so intrusive that I now block all ads, and all javascript / cookies by default.

Cool for them...

[ect5150]

Cool for them, now can someone recommend me my new search engine?

Re:Cool for them...

[langelgjm]

Google recommends AltaVista: Do "I'm feeling lucky" for "search engine".

Awesome!

[brxndxn]

Now we can be notified about special offers and promotions that are disturbingly close to what we actually want!

Re:Awesome!

[gbulmash]

Now we can be notified about special offers and promotions that are disturbingly close to what we actually want!

This may be tongue-in-cheek, but it's disturbingly accurate too. Part of their AdWords algorithm is to start incrementally raising the price on cost-per-click ads that aren't performing well. And they break this down by keyword. So if your ad is getting a really poor clickthrough from a certain keyword, they'll make you pay more and more for the keyword until you either drop it or improve your ad's clickthrough rate.

While that business method optimizes/maximizes CPM for Google, it also means that people who just bid on 500 loosely related keywords are going to gradually whittle that down to just those keywords that are are actually performing in terms of CPC and conversion. It stands to reason that if an ad is generating more clicks and more conversions for a specific keyword, that ad is more appropriate for it. In a way, it's almost Darwinian. Ads die off in keywords where they don't succeed and flourish in ones where they do.

- Greg

Re:Awesome!

[d3ac0n]

In a way, it's almost Darwinian. Ads die off in keywords where they don't succeed and flourish in ones where they do.

Headlines in 5 years: Google Execs charged with child endangerment because "ads now display nothing but porn"

Linux users might be doomed...!

[bogaboga]

I am afraid Linux users might be doomed if Google goes through with this development. You see, most distros will not install Adobe's flash player by default...and even when it's installed, it chokes on web videos because it is not that up-to-date. Sometimes, it's because of conflicts within the Linux product itself.

On a personal front, I will be pissed if I have to watch a video just because I searched for my favorite item.

Re:Linux users might be doomed...!

[elyk]

If they do implement video ads in their search results, they will probably do it in the same way as the adsense units do, where it doesn't play until you click on it. So its unlikely that you will be forced to watch a video. However, this is still a huge step for google, because it would be the first time that they have had any sort of graphical ads in their search result. This was hinted at as a possibility when they bought 5% of aol, and they denied it then, but I wonder if that influence has finally broken through. Of course, this could all be hype and nothing come of it. All I have to say is that if google does do this, they had better move really carefully, or risk alienating a lot of users.

A more accurate title

[Digital Vomit]

Here's a more accurate title for this topic:

Google Mulling Over Giving Up Its #1 Search Engine Spot

Seriously: video ads? WTH?!

oh well

[Anonymous Coward]

If they put flash ads in, the only result will be another result in my adblocks blacklist.
text adverts are fine - they are unobtrusive most of the time ( apart from those linky popup-ads which i dont think google do ). Image ads are reasonable if static. animated ads are a no-no and video ads you can just forget about.

Ironic

[edwardpickman]

They both figured out how to speed up searches and slow down the speed for search pages to load. I guess that's what passes for progress these days, two steps forward and two steps backward.

The almighty dollar

[Technician]

Google is "finally succumbing to the power of the almighty dollar"

The dollar is quite the temptress and very deceitful. Following the money has led many to the path of destruction. The record companies have tried to collude and through artificial scarcity kept CD prices way above reasonable. Sales have fallen as a result of completion even though i Pod sales skyrocket.

Google has command of the advertising market. If they follow the temptress and try to follow the money, then Google will become just another search engine.

It would be sad to see Google become another ad-laden site with no special attraction to the users. Is Google stupid enough to ditch tons of eyeballs to get a slightly higher price per ad?

Others are ditching the overburdening pages and imitating Google's success. Most of these pages now don't load their page with banner advertisements anymore and for good reason. They lost major market share to Google because of it. They have modeled Google.

http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.dogpile.com/
http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true&mkt=en-US
http://search.yahoo.com/
http://www.hotbot.com/

If Google gets tempted by the money, they may find themselves quickly in the company of almost dead search engines that they stomped. They know how the other search engines dropped to obscurity. Why are they even interested in putting on that well known way to the bottom of the search engines.

Re:The almighty dollar

[Kelz]

Well my only suggestion would be to save the rant until after you've seen how they implement it.

What do you mean finally??!!

[kiwioddBall]

Google are a listed company - their main purpose is to succumb to the power of the mighty dollar - I'm pretty darn sure that the shareholders weren't under the impression that they were donating to a charity!

There is some impression that having better than average PR -ie writing intelligent blog entries / Apples Steve Jobs writing smart open letters means that they are genuine and open and not out to make lots of $$$ - this isn't the case!

Use Opera

[l33t gambler]

Use Opera and add an "enable plug-ins" and "enable GIF/SVG animation" buttons at a convinient spot. I can't really understand why websites use flash or gif animaitons in their articles or news, it makes everything look very messy and unprofessional. Feels like a Tabloid magazine with TV-shop running in the background.

Can't be as bad as Slashdot

[QuantumG]

who take money from Microsoft and play anti-Linux FUD on the front page.

Thing is, most Slashdot users don't even see it.. thanks Adblock.

Re:Not "evil", just slanted.

[VGPowerlord]

No, disrupting my web browsing is evil, no matter whom the source is.

I consider all of the following disruptive:
1. In Your Face animated ads (subtle ones are OK)
2. Anything that makes sounds.
3. Flash Ads. I especially hate the Intel "follow the cursor" ads.
4. Ads that pop up when my mouse moves over a word. Chances are if your site does that, I put it on my personal blacklist.

Re:Google sends tiananmen square down a memory hol

[Thorrablot]

That's evil. The rest is icing on the cake.
It's OK to be importing an unprecedented amount of Chinese goods and exploit the cheap labor for every other aspect of the western economy, but Google is evil because they set up a satellite search service that institutes the required Chinese national policies?

Since the suppression of information is happening regardless of Google's presence, that should clarify that the root of the suppression is not due to U.S. companies agreeing to Chinese government demands, but is the Chinese government itself.

Frankly, it's also better for U.S. interests to have a "bubble" of Google servers that have a set of blacklisted/censored material for the time being, instead of watching Google lose out entirely in the fastest growing economy to the Chinese domestic engines (e.g. Baidu)

These politicians who (while it was a popular subject) wanted to crucify Google don't have any qualms about continuing to support China by importing their cheap goods and exploiting the cheap labor costs.

Hypocrits.

you will not be distracted by ads on Google

[dulitz]

I'm the product manager responsible for the way ads look on Google. You will not be distracted by image ads or video ads on Google search results pages. Period.

Just because other companies use image ads and video ads with the _purpose_ of distracting users doesn't mean Google will do that. Images and videos can be useful and entertaining, if you see them when you want to see them. It's taken us a long time to figure out how to do it right.

BTW, how many _years_ do we have to be in business before people learn Google isn't motivated by short-term greed? Yes, we want to make money. We want to make money 10 years from now. The only way to do that is to build great products that people want. I think we've done a pretty good job of that so far, and we're not planning to stop.

Re:you will not be distracted by ads on Google

[5pp000]

Don't forget the story about the early days of Google when the developers would occasionally receive a mysterious email message containing only a number. I've forgotten the exact number, alas, but it was always the same -- 31, let's suppose. Eventually they figured out that whenever they put more than 31 words on the Google home page, they would get a message with this number 31. I don't know if the sender was ever identified, but at least at the time, Google evidently took the message to heart.

I hope this story is still part of the company culture.

All that said, your post is reassuring. I hope you really mean the part about "if you see them when you want to see them".