YouTube To Roll Out 6-Second Ads That You Can't Skip (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader writes: YouTube announced on Tuesday that it will be introducing an unskippable, 6-second bumper ads before certain videos. The video juggernaut says that these ads are largely aimed at mobile users. "We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads -- and we're excited to see what the creative community will do with them," YouTube's Zach Lupei wrote in a blog post. The Verge reports, "The company justifies the short ads (which cannot be skipped, unlike longer spots) by pointing to research showing that 50 percent of 18 to 49-year-olds turn to mobile as their first option for consuming video -- and keep in mind a ton of that is music."

Comments

"cannot be skipped"

[Anonymous Coward]

*challenge accepted*

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[Anonymous Coward]

They can make it 'unskippable' in the sense that you have to wait 6 seconds. However, a custom video player can blank the screen or something in that interval.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[93 Escort Wagon]

We are inexorably marching towards Blipverts.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[Rob Y.]

Since they're already making you watch the first 6 seconds before the 'skip' button appears, it's more like they're accepting the fact that everyone hits the skip button at the first opportunity. At least this makes the advertisers attempt to be clever within the 6 second limit, and maybe could make for an interesting twitter-like ad experience. But if, once the skip button is gone, they start letting the ad length creep upward, that'll be the beginning of the end.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[ArchieBunker]

Gonna be pretty difficult when the ad is spliced into the actual content.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[suupaabaka]

Oh great, subliminal messaging is just what we need to follow reality TV.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[infolation]

Oh I'll skip it alright... I'll close the damn youtube window.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[c]

it's more like they're accepting the fact that everyone hits the skip button at the first opportunity.

People might be a lot less inclined to hit 'skip' right away if they cracked down on the loudness of ads. I'm finding with a lot of them (video game ads primarily) that I'm ignoring the ad content entirely because I'm hunting for the volume control, then immediately going for the skip button. Youtube audio levels are already variable enough without allowing the television loudness tricks to take hold, too.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[allo]

Why? When it's exactly 6 seconds, it should be really easy.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[MitchDev]

6 seconds is long enough to add a product or service to my family's "Do not buy/do not do business with" list...

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[tehlinux]

>blank the screen or something

Just show the youtube buffering animation. 6 extra seconds of that shouldn't even be noticeable to most users!

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[93 Escort Wagon]

I dunno... if Blipverts caused the people on reality television to start exploding, it might improve the planet somewhat.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[Anonymous Coward]

I skip every advert on Youtube.

Quite simple, really, just don't watch anything with an advert.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[John Meacham]

Except the advertiser does not pay when people skip.

So it is in the advertisers best interest to have you skip if you are actually not interested in the ad, if they made a nice quiet ad, people might let it run without realizing it even if they are not interested and the advertiser is out money.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[GrumpySteen]

There Goes Honey Boo Boom

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[Darinbob]

Or what I do, just hit back button to not watch the advertisement or the video. And there are already 30 second unskippable ads, those are quite annoying.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[Darinbob]

They've already had these twitter like ads, they rush to get their message in before the 5 seconds is up and you can skip them. There's one that even makes a joke about getting the message out before he could be skipped.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[Oligonicella]

It's called "getting a soda".

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[Mashiki]

They should pay. Then again, I have a problem with an ad that's 4 minutes long for a video that's 48 seconds in length.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[zazzel]

I've mostly stopped using websites that offer videos with ads before them. I dislike video as a medium anyway for most uses - because of low information density, and because information doesn't flow at my desired speed and is hard to skip back when I missed something.

More so on mobile, where I have a 1GB monthly data cap and will sure as hell not waste that on advertisements OR videos.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[thegarbz]

Why? Because someone dared to run a advert?

I imagine you don't own a mobile phone or even have internet if that's the way you decide which products to buy.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[MitchDev]

Yeah, the bandwidth issue is important, I just usally don;t think about it due to having a fast connection at home and a company provided smartphone.

But yeah, good point on the Bandwidth issue

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[MitchDev]

If I want to buy a product or service, I'll research it. Ads are mostly shit and always will be (there are a few that are entertaining, but most are just purely annoying)

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[MitchDev]

I'd buy that for a dollar

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[c]

So it is in the advertisers best interest to have you skip if you are actually not interested in the ad...

True. The idea is that Google's job would be to make it be in the advertisers best interest to not play the loudness wars game. For example, forcing the ad loudness to something approximating the video it precedes would be an easy enough fix.

If there was a subtle penalty to the ad when users hit the skip button, it could also lead to an overall improvement in the quality of ads.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[dddux]

Same here. I usually actually don't want to buy whatever they're advertising, and especially if the ad is annoying in some way, usually too loud.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[Keith111]

I love the huge gap of understanding between media players such as youtube and ad producers. Ad companies throw their ads at youtube who says 'sure, tons of people view this ad' and they assume that means people actually see it. Viewers just hit mute and scroll away or let their hand fall to their side for a while until the ad goes away. Nobody actually ever sees the ad, but youtube thinks they did, and tells the ad company they did, so everyone but the end user actually thinks ads have purpose. lol.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[thegarbz]

That's a load of crap. Without marketing you wouldn't know about the product in question so there would be no need to research it. Or you'd find out about it after everyone else has one which leaves you little more than a "me too man". That works if you're buying a car, not so much if you're buying tickets to a concert.

Ads are marketing. Blacklisting a company for daring to market to you while at the same time subsidising a service which you don't pay for is not just absurd it's a downright dangerous thought and we can thank god that everyone doesn't think like you otherwise we'd have to actually go and get a cat rather than being able to watch videos of them online ... FOR FREE.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[stealth_finger]

totally agree with this too. I will go without rather than watch ads!

Well, then pay for the ad free version or realise that the ads are what pays for it.

Re:"cannot be skipped"

[MitchDev]

You are such a good little consumer sheep....

Well yes duh

[suso]

How else did you think they were going to pay for all that bandwidth you consume watching 15 minute 4K videos of someone unboxing toys?

Re:Well yes duh

[mythosaz]

Peering doesn't pay for hard drives and racks.

I mean, selling your user data probably does, but....

Re:Well yes duh

[inode_buddha]

Why should their business model (or lack thereof) be my problem?

Re:Well yes duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ISP doesn't pay Youtube (Google, Alphabet) anything. Google is a so-called peering slut. They basically only demand that you are professional about the peering (24/7 network staff, etc). Youtube on the other hand doesn't pay ISPs either. But Google has server costs, license costs and network costs (for their own network, through which they deliver the data to the peering points), so it's not free, and not paid for, even though you paid your ISP.

Re:Well yes duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if their business model isn't sustanable they do crap like this to fix that?

Re:Well yes duh

[istartedi]

With advances in technology such that the bandwidth isn't even worth caring about. Just old enough here to remember the dire warning that some USENET servers used to display to us, admonishing us to post sparingly because the 10k of text we were submitting would be "duplicated across thousands of servers and cost thousands of dollars".

Re:Well yes duh

[srmalloy]

How else did you think they were going to pay for all that bandwidth you consume watching 15 minute 4K videos of someone unboxing toys?

Are they going to accept the charges for the cost to us of the bandwidth we pay for that their ads use up? I wonder how much of their ad revenue would be eaten up by that...

Re:Well yes duh

[amRadioHed]

They aren't making their business model your problem. If you object to the ads which are part of their business model then you are making it your problem.

Re:Well yes duh

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid for the car, why do I have to spend more money at the store?

Re:Well yes duh

[wonkey_monkey]

It's not. No-one's forcing you go to YouTube.

Re:Well yes duh

[inode_buddha]

*sigh* OK then I quit youtube altogether. Now how much are those advertising eyeballs worth? . In fact I *do* have a problem with it. Its not like these are poor little startups without any cash. I'll just send them a bill for the bandwidth maybe. And as far as the content creators go, none of the "how-to" community that I'm in, depends on ad revenue.

Re:Well yes duh

[Qzukk]

This idea is as dumb as the idea the ISPs had where they could charge YouTube to graciously permit you to visit their website.

Google has their ISP that they pay, you have your ISP that you pay, and various peering arrangements govern how the two ISPs talk to each other.

This even applies if Google installs servers at your ISP's data center, the videos still have to be transferred to that server over the internet backbone. Google isn't going to have a person with a thumb drive walk over to Comcast HQ to upload the latest in cat videos.

Re:Well yes duh

[VanGarrett]

Your shit doesn't get covered with other people's ads unless you check the checkbox agreeing with YouTube to monetize your video, or if someone proves a copyright claim on your content, and chooses to monetize it, over taking it down. The point of the ads is to pay for the content, not the bandwidth.

Re:Well yes duh

[allo]

Well, it's not like youtube isn't monetized in other ways. Ask the people getting money FROM youtube for the views on their videos.

Re:Well yes duh

[Gavagai80]

I watch youtube exclusively in 360p. Can I skip the ads?

Re:Well yes duh

[Khyber]

" or if someone proves a copyright claim on your content,"

Proves? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

You must not know anything about the most recent uprising against YouTube/Google and the absolute lack of fair use and such.

Re:Well yes duh

[edtice1559]

Those peering arrangements mean that the ISPs don't bill each other. They still have a cost. Somebody has to build and maintain the infrastructure! And if you are saturating connections, they have to bill more. So if two adjoining counties make an agreement where one pays for the fire department and the other the police department and they provide services for each other, you're saying that makes those services suddenly free to provide? The fact that peers don't charge each other is because each side is paying their own costs.

Re:Well yes duh

[fafalone]

Of course by "proves" you mean "claims with no evidence and simply has to say 'yes we own that' again with no evidence if you appeal, even if you prove they don't even own the copyright to what they're saying they do" right? Then if you attract enough attention through the media to get their PR department to notice, or hire a lawyer and start fighting just on principle, they might finally relent, but the false claimant gets to keep the revenue they've made in the first few weeks/months, which accounts for most of what will be made.
And they're still not doing enough to stop infringement according to "rightsholders", who have access to the system to monetize/takedown videos under their control with no oversight or repercussions for false and even outright fraudulent claims.

Re:Well yes duh

[shortscruffydave]

Well, it's not like youtube isn't monetized in other ways. Ask the people getting money FROM youtube for the views on their videos.

What are these "other ways"?. The only mechanism I have for getting revenue from YouTube in return for them hosting my videos and serving them up to people is a cut of the advertising revenue?

Re:Well yes duh

[CimmerianX]

Hell, I have a Tech blog with HOW-To style stuff.... All I do is ask for a $5 to buy me a beer if something I published saved you time or stress. Some people do send in the Donation.

Re:Well yes duh

[farble1670]

It also doesn't pay the content creator.

Re:Well yes duh

[farble1670]

How much is it worth to them to have you consume their bandwidth, server resources, etc. and then adblock or skip ads entirely? Let's see, hard to say exactly but clearly something less than $0.

Re:Well yes duh

[farble1670]

The ad revenue is split with Youtube. Do you have documentation showing that Youtube ensures that none of that revenue pays for bandwidth?

Re:Well yes duh

[farble1670]

Youtube is ads, and subscription now with Youtube Red. That how videos are monetized, and if you are getting income from Youtube, that too is from those two sources.

Sorry ...

[PPH]

... I missed your ad. I was checking traffic at the moment.

Marketing lingo

[NoZart]

i just love how they're "excited to see what the creative community will do with them" and all i hear is "yay, mo' money"

Re:Marketing lingo

[93 Escort Wagon]

marketing at its best.

Well, YouTube's parent is an advertising company after all.

Re:Marketing lingo

[tommeke100]

They're not ads, they're little haikus. Little haikus no one wants to read.

Re:Marketing lingo

[Anonymous Coward]

"excited to see what the creative community will do with them"
But wait, there's more!
"In early tests, Bumpers drove strong lift in upper funnel metrics like recall, awareness and consideration..."
"Bumper ads are ideal for driving incremental reach and frequency, especially on mobile..."

Zach Lupei is a recent Harvard MBA, and we all understand what those jerks are like.
I wonder if his Mother knows that he uses that kind of language in public.

Zack Lupei speaks shit
Mommy smells it on his breath
Listerine fails here

Re:Marketing lingo

[ripvlan]

no no - I read that to mean "we haven't found anyone who has [successfully] created an ad - but we're still hoping somebody will !!!"

gosh darn it you creative people - nose to the grindstone !!!

What if you have YouTube Red?

[LWATCDR]

I have Google Music so I get YouTube red for free so I don't think I am seeing ads. Even so a short ad instead of paying is not a bad deal. Now Hulu where I pay had have way too many ads sucks.

Re:What if you have YouTube Red?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now Hulu where I pay had have way too many ads sucks."

Serious question, did you have a stroke halfway through writing your post?

Re:What if you have YouTube Red?

[pipingguy]

Is that some kind of porn thing?

Not new?

[thevirtualcat]

In my experience, mobile ads can't generally be skipped anyway.

Sure, the "Skip" button is there, but the ad is usually mostly over by the time the YouTube app actually responds to the tap anyway. Especially when you get a Chromecast involved.

Re:Not new?

[thevirtualcat]

Mute the sound for the first six seconds, then automatically pause if the tab isn't the active tab.

For bonus points, automatically resume the video when you go back to that tab. (Changeable in the settings, of course.)

Re:Not new?

[antdude]

Aren't there ad blockers like on computers?

Re:Not new?

[danbert8]

It's like that on my Roku as well... Very frustrating.

Haikus of video ads?

[olsmeister]

I've got a Haiku for you.

greedy company
intrusive advertisements
I'll watch somewhere else

Re:Haikus of video ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

I gotta admit 6 seconds is a lot less intrusive than the regular 15 or 30 second ads. Unless you are living in a commie utopia, google's gotta pay the bandwidth bills and both google and content creators gotta make a profit.

Re:Haikus of video ads?

[OrangeTide]

That's no longer an option.

Re:Haikus of video ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

you feel entitled
mad that they want some payment?
do your job for free

Re:Haikus of video ads?

[OrangeTide]

If they can't manage to operate a business, then they should stop. I don't really understand your desire for protectionism when most of the internet managed to operate for decades without Google's help.

Google is a good thing until the day they aren't, then we should simply change and adapt the internet to suit ourselves, rather than form policies around how best to maintain the status quo.

Re:Haikus of video ads?

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

Its an awesome hiaku. Let me say that first.

But I think its more like if I agreed to do my job for free and then decided that that wasn't working for me, so i started psychologically manipulating my co-workers to try and extort money from them.

Adding advertising should not be the solution to the business model. Otherwise its an ugly and recursive world.

Re: Haikus of video ads?

[Namarrgon]

Yeah, such greed.

Re:Haikus of video ads?

[MiSaunaSnob]

you could pay for youtube red and then you wouldn't have to watch the adds?

Hasn't This Been Happening?

[Luthair]

I ran into, along with some friends unskippable commercials that are ~30-seconds long in the past couple months.

Re:Hasn't This Been Happening?

[XxtraLarGe]

I ran into, along with some friends unskippable commercials that are ~30-seconds long in the past couple months.

I ran into an unskippable Squatty Potty ad on YouTube about a month back. What was particularly annoying was the fact that the video I wanted to watch was only about 30 seconds long, but the ad is nearly 3 minutes long.

Re:Hasn't This Been Happening?

[CCarrot]

I ran into an unskippable Squatty Potty ad on YouTube about a month back.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Why is this even a thing??? Much less an advertised thing??? Do people really miss their squat toilets that much when they move to North America?

My faith in humanity dies a little more each day...

Re:Hasn't This Been Happening?

[Motherfucking Shit]

Whoever came up with this is brilliant. They found a way to keep some of the H-1B money in America, and it's (supposedly) made in the USA to boot.

Xposed YouTube AdAway?

[emil]

I assume there will be an update in the near future.

If you don't want me to watch it...

[vanyel]

...go ahead and put ads in it. If the first thing I see is an ad, or one pops up, my immediate next click is on the window close button. I'm there for the content, and if you disrupt that, you're history as there's no point otherwise.

Re:If you don't want me to watch it...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're a business. If you aren't willing to watch an ad or pay, then they aren't making money off of you, so why would they care if you refuse to watch it?

Re:If you don't want me to watch it...

[Anonymous Coward]

This. From what I do and from watching my users, most of us just hit the back button when we see a video ad we can't skip. It's like they're not even paying attention to their bounce rate.

Re:If you don't want me to watch it...

[OhPlz]

Content producers won't put content on a site that has no viewers.

Re:Caps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube is already bandwidth hogging. Don't use the service if you're unwilling to pay for it.

Do we need to post Ars and Verge stories?

[halivar]

I go to Slashdot for first-source news; the same reason I go to Ars Technica and the Verge. The problem with linking stories on other news aggregation sites is you've increased the chances that I've already seen the story (and perhaps already commented on it) to just about 90%. Let's link the original source and skip the middle man (i.e. the competition).

Re:Do we need to post Ars and Verge stories?

[John Bokma]

And better comments (Ars)

Re:Do we need to post Ars and Verge stories?

[goldaryn]

> I go to Slashdot for first-source news

First-source? Half the time it's not even the first time that story's been on Slashdot!

Re:Do we need to post Ars and Verge stories?

[thegarbz]

What the hell are you doing using a news aggregator to get first soure news?

Re:Do we need to post Ars and Verge stories?

[deadwill69]

Maybe so, but the comments on here are always more entertaining. The discussions get pretty good sometime too!

Re:Do we need to post Ars and Verge stories?

[Khyber]

Ars has shit commentary and many of their own articles on things like LEDs are absolute bullshit marketing disguised as fact.

Ars sold out years ago and is absolutely worthless.

Volume

[jbmartin6]

how long until you can't turn down the volume on them either, even globally? "We're so sorry, this video cannot be viewed with the volume on your device turned below 50%"

Re:Volume

[wonkey_monkey]

Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits

Re:Volume

[Oligonicella]

My sound runs through my amp. They can't detect that. And no, I don't have to get up to adjust it.

how do they, er, plan to make this work?

[Anonymous Coward]

YouTube To Roll Out 6-Second Ads That You Can't Skip

Well is that a fact?

Well, at least, what's a bumper ad? I like it when there's a bumper crop. I enjoy bumper cars. I have no idea what a bumper ad is.

Given the succinct nature of the format, we’ve seen Bumper ads work best when combined with a TrueView or Google Preferred campaign. In early tests, Bumpers drove strong lift in upper funnel metrics like recall, awareness and consideration. We also see that Bumpers work well to drive incremental reach and frequency when paired with a TrueView campaign.

*snip*

We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads – and we’re excited to see what the creative community will do with them. You can use Bumpers beginning in May by talking to your Google sales representative, and stay tuned as we continue to roll out new ad formats that are uniquely adapted to the way people watch video now, and in the future.

Huh???

Ok, I'm being obtuse. Right before what I quoted it says they're 6 second ads. But WHAT are they and WHY are they unblockable? Are they in the video feed itself? If that's the case, I have an mplayer incantation for right after I do my youtube-dl incantation....

Is it only me who is a tiny bit offended?

[friesofdoom]

FTA - "Recent research has shown that half of 18-49 year olds turn to their mobile device first to watch video. Even in the living room, many people prefer to watch on their smartphone – for the control, personalization and ease it offers."

So... In other words: YouTube - enabling all of your sociopathic behaviors in the comfort of your friend's own living room.

/etc/hosts

[Sam36]

When I use something like https://github.com/jakeogh/dns... or just add ad domains to a host file resolving to localhost, I don't get any youtube ads. Hopefully this will be true here too.

Re:/etc/hosts

[DarkLordBelial]

I didn't even know youtube had ads until a few weeks ago - when my wife was showing me a video on her phone. I've never seen one and can only presume that my browsers adblocker is taking care of them.

Excited to see..

[OhPlz]

Sounds like they're excited to see their users go somewhere else for video content. People will rip the content from youtube and upload it somewhere else. Ads, ads, everywhere ads. Seems like a missed opportunity for mobile. Why not exempt Android users from the ads and only force them on iPhones? They could market it is another advantage for going with Android.

Slashdot

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

You mean like those annoying auto-play video ads on the home page?

Re:Slashdot

[OrangeTide]

Oh I blocked those years ago.

R.I.P. Slashdot ad revenue.

The cycle continues...

[CAIMLAS]

This same cycle has happened with many a lowly tech company; it's a fine line that google has been treading, but it's bound to happen with some of their services:

Step 1: Create a product which has massive social appeal, operate in the red and make up for it in volume
Step 2: IPO
Step 3: Get massive speculative investment
Step 4: Never turn a profit off your actual vehicle, merely use it as an avenue for...
Step 5: Ad impression generation
Step 6: Slow exodus of viewers
Step 7: Increase ads to make up for exodus
Step 8: Competitors step in to fill vacuum
Step 9: Viable competitor presents itself, starts consuming market share
Step 10: Eventual collapse of initial product, go to Step 1 for new competitor's product.

Re:The cycle continues...

[BigBuckHunter]

Given your explanation, who is the competitor filling the gap? Vimeo?

Re:The cycle continues...

[Halueth]

Given your explanation, who is the competitor filling the gap? Vimeo?

Dumpert? http://www.dumpert.nl/ Sure it's Dutch oriented for now, but who knows...

Re:The cycle continues...

[sexconker]

Twitter/Vine
Snapchat
Facebook
Amazon (especially since they bought Twitch)
And sure, Vimeo, why not?

What we need is a site that simply pulls all content via BitTorrent with seamless streaming. Video streaming via BitTorrent has been possible for a while, and in a closed implementation it could easily be made to work. Just need yet another bloated, permission-fucking JS library to integrate that into a browser window and force all connected viewers to upload. The site itself could be nothing but minimal html/xml and magnet links. Even the layouts and static content could be delivered by magnet links and cached. If a new version is posted, the user gets the option to fetch the site layout, or keep the old one.

Haiku...

[GuB-42]

We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads

If you have been reading the comments at Slashdot at -1 for the last few months, you probably know a haiku that fits perfectly.

How is this different

[SuperKendall]

You already had to wait several seconds before you could skip a longer ad - so it will have the same effect, I watch six seconds of ad and go onto the video...

Or rather they think I watch six seconds of ad, when what I really do is auto audio and go browse something else for ten seconds then come back...

Re:How is this different

[Firethorn]

I refuse to use the youtube ap on my stuff for this reason. I noticed that I get a lot more ads with it.

Re:How is this different

[friesofdoom]

People actually download and install malware instead of using the perfectly OK webpage version of the service? WHY? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

Do they like just giving out all of the personal information on their phone to random companies? Have you looked at the app permissions that are usually required? I want to unzip files, why do I have to give out access to my SMSs for that privilege?

Re:How is this different

[AK Marc]

Why is an app "malware"? In most cases, they improve functionality. My banking app is much much better on a phone. Shortcuts that are things more commonly done, in a manner that requires fewer clicks and fewer pages to do the most common things. Some complex things are missing, but for 99% of what someone goes to a banking app on a phone for, the app is vastly superior to going to the webpage.

Re:How is this different

[guises]

The advantage is that you don't have to push a button here. It seems trivial, but if you start a video and then sit back to watch... only to realize that you need to interact with the stupid advertisement... I like this. I especially like this if it replaces the other more annoying advertising options, like those pop-ups that both require you to click on them and play during the video. Those are the worst.

Re:How is this different

[jrumney]

It's about being honest with the advertisers. 90% of viewers skip the ad after the first 5-6 seconds, so you might as well make the ad 6 seconds long (most ads don't actually say what they are for until the end, so this has apparently not occurred to advertisers until now).

Old fogey alert...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The company justifies the short ads (which cannot be skipped, unlike longer spots) by pointing to research showing that 50 percent of 18 to 49-year-olds..

Well, as I'm not in your feckin target demographic, how about checking the DOB and just forgetting about it.
Though, I suppose, when the marketing drone which thought this wheeze up gets some loaded market research done which proves that people do want fire that can be fitted nasally then they'll be targeting us next...

the YT cesspit just got a bit shittier.

 

If it brings more money to content creators.

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube completely replaced TV for me years ago.

Granted, it's probably a niche audience that enjoys watching teardowns of lab equipment and exploring all the weird and interesting electronic stuff you can have mailed to you from china for less than 5 bucks(shipped).

I want money to end up in the hands of the smaller, niche content makers that I enjoy. Patreon is great but more ad revenue would up the money they get from passive viewers.

Blipverts

[ewhac]

https://youtu.be/PJP-Ilw_xaY

It seems YouTube is intent on becoming Network 23.

Stopped using YouTube a While Ago

[JakFrost]

Perhaps a year ago I stopped using YouTube because I started getting pushed those long 30-second non-skippable ads for every single video I was trying to play. Now they're trying to push 6-second ads that are non-skippable on mobile phones. Too bad I won't see them since I stopped using their service.

As a matter of fact I even uninstalled Google news and weather app from my Android phone today because it stopped using my Firefox with ad blocker to present the news stories and instead started using the built-in webkit Chrome browser with all the ads and automatic video play enabled.

It's not surprising that there are no Adblock plugin for the Chrome browser on the mobile Android platform knowing that Google is just giving out their OS to be a delivery method for their increasingly more annoying advertising.

As this trend continues to create more annoying and embedded advertisements the more I'm starting to move away from Google and there services and the platform.

Re:Stopped using YouTube a While Ago

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there was some way to... block.... ads....

Not long enough

[npslider]

Darn! That's not long enough to make the trip to the bathroom, fridge, and back. Come on Google! Give me at least 30 seconds!

Keep them non-vulger!

[rockmuelle]

My kids are the YouTube consumers in the house. One of them loves Minecraft videos. Let's just say that YouTube's choices of ads with those reflect zero knowledge that there's a 6 year old viewing them.

And don't tell me to use the YouTube kids app. It overfilters in most cases, but also underfilters.

Maybe let me set preferences if you're going to force ads on me? Or at least note my time zone and select ads based on the old-school network rules for what's appropriate at certain hours of the day?

-Chris

Re:Keep them non-vulger!

[shaitand]

Chris, the ads are based on the history of viewer not the content of the video.

Re:Keep them non-vulger!

[rockmuelle]

That really doesn't explain the completely inappropriate ads my kids keep getting on YouTube. Our viewing history is almost entirely Minecraft videos, Disney Cartoons, and Katy Perry videos. Even I could write an algorithm to figure out that it's probably kids watching the videos (of course, I have a Ph.D. in this stuff, so that's not quite fair ;) ).

-Chris

Re:Keep them non-vulger!

[rockmuelle]

If you happen to work at YouTube: my one request is a simple setting that lets me flag the account as one that is used by the whole family. That alone should give you enough to target ads more effectively.

Also note that I'm not complaining about ads - just that they're not appropriate and YouTube's current (machine learning? auction based? ???) algorithm doesn't work very well.

-Chris

Re:Keep them non-vulger!

[shaitand]

Right, we are still pretending that your kids only look at what you know about and that YOUR viewing history is clean.

So you advocate the opposite of net neutrality?

[raymorris]

> If YouTube wants money they can get it from the ISPs.

So under your proposal, YouTube would charge ISPs for access to their site. As would Slashdot and all of the other free (advertising-supported) sites, I suppose. If your ISP doesn't pay up, you can;t access YouTube, correct?

So you only get access to those sites that your ISP pays for. Obviously your ISP isn't going to jack around making contracts for $10/year to access HowToFixAppliances.com, or any of the other 99.99% of web sites that aren't in the top 500 most popular. So you get access to whichever portion of the Alexa top 500 that your ISP negotiates a satisfactory deal with, and nothing else.

I don't care for that plan. What I prefer is that I buy access to the INTERNET as a whole, Slashdot, YouTube, and VeggieRecipes.com get access to the internet, and I can access any site. Time Warner and Comcast aren't involved with paying the bills for third-party web sites, and don't control what I can access.

Re:So you advocate the opposite of net neutrality?

[FatdogHaiku]

I have a related problem with my carrier. I get internet access from a cable TV company. I don't subscribe to cable TV because I don't like paying all that money for what they offer. Now they (ISP/cable co) have refused a deal for cable TV channels controlled by Viacom. If I go to a site controlled by Viacom, like Comedy Central, Viacom gives me a message saying video playback is blocked by my ISP (a half truth at best) and I should contact the ISP to get it fixed. I got it fixed with a VPN, but as more people cut the cord I'm seeing various TV providers declining to allow playback without a proof of cable TV subscription... I hope web only content providers just kick ass on all these bone heads.

Could be worse

[viperidaenz]

My local news site has 15 second unskippable ads.
The videos auto-play if you move your mouse cursor over them.
They also make you watch the ad again if you replay the video.
They then auto-play another random video that usually has nothing to do with the article you're reading.

Re:Could be worse

[skam240]

Out of curiosity, what ads are you seeing on youtube that arent appropriate for kids to see? I can't think of any I've seen. On the other hand I don't have kids so I don't look for or think about such things too much so maybe I'm just not noticing.

Re:Could be worse

[viperidaenz]

Who mentioned kids?

Re:Could be worse

[skam240]

Replied to the wrong comment. No idea how that happened but sorry about that.

Use Vimeo or DailyMotion?

[walterbyrd]

Maybe it's time to use a different video service?

They are out of options

[npslider]

With more and more people using Ad Blockers, what other way is there to generate more revenue?

Ummm... they already do this

[shaitand]

Youtube already has ads that never present a skip option. Is this new in that they will only be 6s now?

At least there's "Mute"

[H_Fisher]

I've already gotten used to muting any ad that doesn't have a "Skip" button. Since 95% of my video browsing happens on a tablet, it's nothing to put the ads and set the tablet down for 15 to 30 seconds.

I'd be much more inclined not to skip ads if: (A) more of them were local and relevant, and (B) the same ads didn't repeat 3-4 times within 90 mins of viewing short videos.

Time of ad per video

[iplayfast]

(numbers off the top of my head)
TV ads 20 minutes per hour.
Radio Ads 20 minutes per hour.
Youtube ads 6 sec per 3 minute video (average length of music video) = 2 minutes per hour

Why I pay for netflix. I hate watching ads.

Re:Cable TV

[inode_buddha]

I think his point is that this is basically double-dipping, since youtube is owned by google, and is therefore publicly traded at a hefty profit. As far as paying content creators, all the ppl I watch do the occasional in-video product endorsement, or depend on donations. Since they are working pros in the field the product endorsements are pretty solid and reliable. They are also promoting their own shops and businesses with "how-to" videos.

Your entire response is different

[Henarchaga]

You're being rather flaky about your stance on this issue, AC.

Re: So...

[slazzy]

You'll get a small electric shock if you try that

Do these type of ads even work?

[avandesande]

I kind of get how tv medium works because of it's passive nature, and users are trained to put up with ads. But youtube it is a 'pull' medium and more often than not the ads are often jarring and/or ironic. For instance, I might be looking for a classical performance and an ad comes up with some kind of awful background pop music- and I make a conscious decision to hate whatever they are selling. I would say that more often than not I do this with every you tube ad.

You Can't Skip

[dohzer]

But you can hit mute and look out the window for ten seconds to do some thinking.

Re:You Can't Skip

[Overzeetop]

*sets down tablet*

"Hmmmm...make America great again...oh, look, my video is ready to play!"

Re:You Can't Skip

[CCarrot]

But you can hit mute and look out the window for ten seconds to do some thinking.

Then you'd better switch that brain off and start watching youtube again.

No wonder they say the current generation has no attention spa............haha, kitties!......

Re:Caps?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, jackass, it's not free. Someone has to pay for it. Either you're the customer and you pay for it with cash, or you're the product and the advertisers pay the cash. Fuckoff with your "I deserve" bullshit.

"largely aimed at mobile users"

[wardrich86]

"largely aimed at mobile users"

Yes thanks, because I have so much fucking mobile data to begin with, and it's soooooooo cheap.

fucking asswipes. Glad my phone's out of warranty soon so I can root it and install AdAway again.

Re:"largely aimed at mobile users"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes thanks, because I have so much fucking mobile data to begin with, and it's soooooooo cheap.

Not that I like or support ads, but...
If your mobile data is so limited/expensive, then why would you want to watch YouTube videos with it?
Also, the ad is like 1% of the data. That's a completely different situation from non-video sites where the video ad takes up 99% of the data, and it therefore pays off to block it.

Re:"largely aimed at mobile users"

[wardrich86]

I have 8 gigs a month, anything over that I get robbed $15/gig.

I watch YouTube videos because I can afford it in my bandwidth budget. But I also have control over the quality of the video and don't stream HD. I have no idea what quality the ads are coming through at, but they should be forced to be streamed at the lowest quality when on mobile.

Re:"largely aimed at mobile users"

[wardrich86]

I don't even think phone insurance is a thing in Canada... in any case, it's a Samsung, so rooting it would trip Knox and there's no way to roll it back.

Re:Cable TV

[secretsquirel]

Also the #1 reason why I cancelled cable.

Any bets on how long they will be unskipable?

[houghi]

Will we talking minutes, hours, days or weeks? And if they are really unskipable, how much time till we do not see or hear anything on those videos for 6 seconds?

Re: So...

[CCarrot]

You'll get a small electric shock if you try that

More like the ad conveniently auto-pauses for you whenever the face recognition detects that you are looking elsewhere...so helpful! Also mandatory, so yay!

Already get unskippable ads

[DiSKiLLeR]

Already get 12 to 30 second unskippable ads on the youtube app on android. It's infuriating. 5 or 6 seconds is ok but up to half a minute? Get fucked.

I cancel and try to play the vid again a few times, and if it still won't let me watch it without being forced to see this 30 second unskippable ad I just skip the video completely and don't bother.

Re:Already get unskippable ads

[AmiMoJo]

Try installing AdBlock for Android. No root needed. Blocks all YouTube ads and most web ads. Works with apps and browsers.

Re:Caps?

[allo]

seeing ads is not paying. Indeed, it would even be an better option to have a monthly fee than to have mandatory ads.

Exciting...

[cloud.pt]

I'm excited to see what adblock will do with them.

*SIGH*

[rholtzjr]

They learned nothing............

Wait ... wait ...

[jxander]

YouTube has ads?

I NEVER see YouTube ads @ all: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Adsources = blocked by APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit http://www.bing.com/search?q=%...

Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS, routers & antivirus + less security issues/complexity. Compliments firewalls (w/ layered drivers blocking less used IP addys vs. hosts blocking more used domains) & DNS (lighten dns load). Gets data via 10 security sites.

Works vs. caps & HTTP PUSH ads in Chrome

* Ads rob bandwidth/speed paid for, security (openbid adnetworks abuse), privacy in tracking + anonymity.

Hosts add speed (hardcodes/adblocks), security (bad sites/poisoned dns), reliability (dns down), & anonymity (dns requestlogtrackers) natively. Hosts != blockable by ClarityRay (like. souled-out to admen inferior wasteful redundant slower usermode browser addons)

APK

P.S. - Proven safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/... (Verified by Malwarebytes' S. Burn "I've seen the code & yes it is safe" http://forum.hosts-file.net/vi... )

Unskippable, unignorable ads..

[nightfire-unique]

..are inherently hostile. I just don't understand the motivation.

Why would an ad agency say "I will pay you more if your force your users to watch our ads?"

Internet Cancer

[GrahamCox]

Ads have always been a cancer on the internet. This is just further metastasisation.

AKA YouTube to forcibly market Youtube Red

[maugle]

"Hey, there's still not enough people signing up for YouTube Red"
"OK, hit the button marked 'Make Regular YouTube Slightly Shittier' once or twice"

Re:AKA YouTube to forcibly market Youtube Red

[adhdengineer]

If they'd roll YouTube Red out to the UK I'd sign up at once, but it's not available yet and no ETA i can see...

Ten monthly subscriptions for ten videos

[tepples]

Indeed, it would even be an better option to have a monthly fee than to have mandatory ads.

If all the videos you watch are on YouTube, you can subscribe to YouTube Red if that's available in your country. But if you view ten different things, one on each of ten different websites, are you willing to buy ten different monthly subscriptions? Micropayments aren't quite practical yet.

Re:Ten monthly subscriptions for ten videos

[allo]

That's the proble for the publishers to solve. They do not solve the adblocking problem, seems like detecting adblock may even be illegal (i read an article lately from one european country which ruled you may not detect the users settings by european law and the court ruled an adblock detector illegal there), then they should solve the problem how to get money from people, who want to give them money. I will not pay 10 subscriptions, but maybe ten sites can work together on something. If not ... their problem, they want my money not the other way round.

Re:Ten monthly subscriptions for ten videos

[tepples]

If not ... their problem

If you planned on becoming a publisher, how would you go about trying to solve it?

Re:Ten monthly subscriptions for ten videos

[allo]

By not relying on making money via ads. That's a business model which was ruined by publishers / ad companies. It's dead, there are only a few people, who didn't notice, yet. Still they are whining and insulting their own users.
If it doesn't pay to do something online, don't. For example a newspaper can have online news for marketing reasons of the PAPER version, they can try a paywall, they can try to give free access only to people buying the paper version. Or they can just have a homepage about the paper without (expensive) news there. Of course they can try ads, but currently everybody is telling us that it doesn't work in the end of the day.
And now big news: If you force ads on people by anti-adblock techniques ... they are not clicking! Ohh ...
Maybe we need to change the ads, so the close button opens a popup with the site. Then they are at least clicking. I bet once the window is open, they will be happy to buy ... oh!

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

[tepples]

Unless you assumed that end-user agreement was binding in your jurisdiction?

I thought the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act made website terms of service binding in the United States, home of Slashdot.

Criminal enterprise needs more money

[shanen]

Yeah, that thing with bumping the volume on the ads is especially annoying and especially abused by a couple of scam companies that use loud sirens or screeches to insure they have my attention. And hatred.

What I can't understand is the financial model driving their insane rudeness. I am not aware of ANY ad on YouTube that represented ANY product or service that I would ever consider buying--and if I did remember their ad, it would insure I would try much harder NOT to buy it even if I thought I had a use for it. Whatever it is.

There must be some aliens among us who respond to the ads?

Anyway, the real problem is that YouTube itself is a criminal enterprise. Every week for the last few years I do an obvious search to see scam results. There are two to five legitimate results buried in several pages of scam results. How is it benefiting YouTube or the google to assist the scammers in pwning YOUR computer? I still can't figure it, but it obviously isn't going away any time soon. (There are several obvious countermeasures, but YouTube only took one baby step in the last few years.)

Re:Criminal enterprise needs more money

[shanen]

Is your AC mind really so weak?

Re:Criminal enterprise needs more money

[shanen]

Why the AC for such an interesting comment?

TANSTAAFL

[Tough Love]

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you thought Google was your friend or sends you free videos to make you happy, or isn't evil, you have another think coming. It's going to get worse from here, much worse. Get used to it: you are Google's money pump, nothing more. The first one is always free.

The company justifies the short ads...

[rnturn]

... by pointing to research showing that 50 percent of 18 to 49-year-olds turn to mobile as their first option for consuming video -- and keep in mind a ton of that is music.''

Real smart. Turn the mobile music listening experience into what broadcast radio has become today: the majority of the air time is now advertisements... with a little music thrown in to keep most people from becoming so annoyed that they turn it off. Pass.

Re:The company justifies the short ads...

[zazzel]

I wasn't aware that there were a lot of *mobile* users who turn to Youtube for playing music? I thought that's what Spotify, Napster, Deezer, Google Play music, Amazon Prime music etc. were for. At least that's where I get my music.

Re: So...

[Darinbob]

50 merits deducted for not looking at the ad. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/)

I have yet to see youtube ads on my machines

[caseih]

Maybe it's the ublock add-on, but I have never once seen an ad on Youtube on any of my computers, and not even on my tablet for that matter. I'm not totally sure why. Lately I've taken to watching youtube using mpv or youtube-dl, as the experience is just better on my more anemic computers (neither flash nor html5 video works well for me). I guess we'll see how youtube-dl handles these new forced ads.

Chic N' Stu

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

we're excited to see what the creative community will do with them.

What a fantastic waste of their resources then.

And here's me, not wanting to be creatively manipulated, with the end result being that I consume more. Buy used, save money.
Advertising causes need.
Advertising's got you on the run.

They already have unskippable ads

[Wizarth]

It might depend what country you're in, but here in Australia they already have adverts up to 30 second long (usually 15) that are unskippable. I don't know what proportion these are in comparison to skippable adverts, but I -wish- they'd go down to 6 seconds long.

(Yes, I have an adblocker, I leave it off for Youtube because ad impressions = income for the creators of the series I'm watching.)

Wrapper

[ThatsNotPudding]

a program that searches thru and launches a selected YouTube video... and cuts out audio and video for the first six seconds.

Youtube Red

[Not-a-Neg]

Am I the only person on Earth that signed up for Youtube Red? I happily pay $10 a month for an ad-free experience, it's a substantial bargain compared to the $120/month I used to pay for cable TV which was overrun with ads. I also pay for HBO Now, Twitch Turbo for zero ads and PBS Passport for access to their back-catalog of shows. I hope Crackle offers and ad-free version for $10/month as well. $50-ish a month means I'm still saving $70/month.

Makes sense, actually

[GWBasic]

I occasionally see an ad on Youtube, and I can skip it after watching for 5 seconds. So what do I do? I skip it after 6 seconds. Now I don't have to push buttons!

The well-designed ads get their message across in 6 seconds, but the bad ads assume that they have my undivided attention and are still going through some artsy-fartsy fade-in when I hit skip. Good riddance to the long ads!

Seems like this is really going to impact the advertisers more than the viewers. "You can no longer treat viewers like a captive audience, you have to get your message across in 6 seconds" is an important message to make to advertisers.

justifies the short ads?

[MooseTick]

Why do they need to justify anything? They store and present video without charging users a nickel. I heard 10 years ago their bandwidth bill was $1M a month. All the servers and tech support they have to manage that costs money. They have to at least break even somehow. If not ads, then how?

Unnecessary?

[AC-x]

So, we currently we can only skip ads after 5 seconds, and now they're adding unskippable 6 second ads. Why make a thing of it, 6 second ads would already be basically unskippable anyway!

Actually if they dump those unskippable 30 second ads and replace them with 6 second ads that would be an improvement, I really don't want to have to sit through another fucking 30 second ad for Haribo that I saw just a few minutes ago!

Hungry?

[nanospook]

TANSTAAFL

Can't see mobile ads even if I wanted to

[Blaskowicz]

With the high churn rate in html5 features it seems like outdated phones are unable to play any youtube advertisement.
And why bother trying to install an app when it's easily loaded in the browser anyway?
Good thing that my friend ONLY ever uses internet on the phone for youtube.

Re:Caps?

[farble1670]

If you currently have, or ever plan to be employed, do you hope to receive compensation for that work? Same thing. It's far from free to operate Youtube. Far FAR from free. Thousands of employees. Acres of real estate. Data centers. Hardware. Legal.

Rotate ads

[ebvwfbw]

It really sucks when I get the same stupid add over and over again. Do I need to see the "move freight by rail" advertisement about 50 times? I'll probably never move anything that could use rail in my life. At least that I have a choice with. Then there was the one on patent reform. As if I could do something about it. Bunch of other stupid ads. Want to watch something, you're going to see that ad... AGAIN! Feel like I should get to punch someone.

Is dead to me

[CauseBy]

A couple weeks ago something shifted and YT videos mostly stopped working for me. I don't know which one, but one of my ad blockers (in the browser, the other one in the browser, the hosts file, the WiFi DNS filter, maybe something else) began blocking all content on YouTube. The videos just remain dark when I press play. A few videos still work -- the ones without ads, I assume.

I was excited when they announced Red because "pay for content" is what I want to do. But $10 a month to watch maybe 20 videos during that month didn't seem worth it to me.

So... okay. I won't watch YouTube videos. That's a small bummer but much smaller than the bummer of watching ads or overpaying.