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YouTube Will Kill Unskippable 30-Second Ads Next Year (theverge.com)
YouTube is planning to do away with the non-skippable 30-second ads that appear before a YouTube video. From a report: In a statement first given to Campaign then confirmed by The Verge, a Google spokesperson said the company will focus on commercial formats that are more engaging for both advertisers and viewers. "We're committed to providing a better ads experience for users online. As part of that, we've decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers," Google said.
Wait, there are adverts on youtube?
Sorry, I don't watch Youtube for advertisements. The only way an advertisement will engage me is if it's off to the side, not flashing, loud or even video at all, and lets me watch the video I'm there to watch in peace.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
>> YouTube is planning to do away with the non-skippable 30-second ads
And, in the next room: "Today, we are introducing 25 and 45-second unskippable ads!"
If anything, this is the continuing use case for multiple browser tabs, each with their own volume/mute button.
I always get a bit nervous when ad formats change. Things like ads which have to be interacted with, every 5-10 minutes (thankfully uBlock Origin + Tampermonkey take care of those.) I'm just waiting for ads which require software to download and run with root/admin rights in order to be able to view a website, similar to the "pr0n viewer codecs" of yesteryear.
As for YouTube, between the Red subscription (which is nice for saving lots of stuff offline), and ad blockers, it hasn't been a problem, but I wonder what the 30 second ads will be replaced by.
Video hosting costs money. Micropayments don't work. Nobody's signing up with a million different video hosts.
The solution was, is, and always will be for the foreseeable future... advertising.
All it'll take to make it work is to find a way to extract the evil from advertising people so they stop continually escalating from 'find where potential customers are and put information in front of them for our clients' to 'skull fuck the entire public to get an extra purchase, regardless of how much trouble it causes'.
"We're committed to providing a better ads experience for users online. As part of that, we've decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,"
I'd like to know why they do not implement this right away. It cannot be because they do not know what works well well for both users and advertisers now.
Getting rid of those annoying ads are the only reason I have it. Don't give a fuck about their original programming. HBO they're not.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
.. If I were to take a gander. I would say that 30 second unskippable ads and the like were HarassWare/AnnoyWare. Basically, they wanted non-YouTube Red to progressively become more and more intolerable thanks to the ads, so people would be encouraged just to get them away.
The problem is, we've been using YouTube for YEARS with almost no ads, so we're not going to just magically take a "worse" version of a service and PAY to get it back to normal. And even then YouTube Red doesn't remove ALL ads.
And that doesn't even begin to address the worst feature. YouTube Red costs a ridiculous price while having BARELY any content. Yes, yes, there's tons of content but it's not curated. You have to SEARCH for it and keep sifting through the crap. Netflix came to the game so much later and blew YouTube out of the water.
Netflix's price feels like a steal. A no-brainer.
YouTube Red's price feels like a rip-off.
Supply and demand. "The consumer is never wrong." (If you want to make money, and you're not making money, it's YOUR fault as a business--not the consumers.)
So back to the topic at hand. With these supremely annoying ads (which I would simply hit the mute button on my car and enjoy 30+ seconds of silence, because "screw you"), either accomplished their target to gain more Red exposure into the common place, or they completely failed.
Maybe I'm far out in left field and missing another key aspect. It's possible. It's possible advertisers thought the option was good at first, but thanks to people like me (and everyone else!) hating them so much (causing NEGATIVE brand reception), they're removing them. That is, they're removing them simply because it doesn't help advertisers or YouTube, compared to the cost YouTube is charging to run those ads. Someone else will have to chime in on that aspect.
MY guess is the only reason for this is that almost no-one actually sits through them.
Anymore than 5 seconds wait before they actually get what they clicked on, and most people have already closed the tab and moved onto something else.
HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No.
If you want the last people who do anything online without adblocker finally cave in and find out how to use it, that's the way to do it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The window close button worked just fine...
Which is probably why they are going away.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... to make watching Free videos so unbearable that you'd subscribe to Redtube...I mean You Tube Red.
I think we know what You Tube Marketing people watch.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
1: Never, ever, allow or in any way provide for "autoplay" on any individual youtube video, embedded or on-site. It's 100% user-hostile. No youtube video should ever, ever play in any wise unless the user actively clicks that triangle icon. No autostart, no hover-start, no timing start. Only if the user specifically says start, or, in the case of a playlist, if the user clearly and unequivocally and in a fully informed manner says to play the playlist.
2: If the user hits that "play" icon, put up a yes / no dialog that says "Would you like to view an ad on [insert concise description of ad's nature here]
3a: If user indicates yes, play the ad, still allowing for cancel, then play the video
3b: If user indicates no, just play the video.
4: Never EVER cover any part of the actual video with advertising interference such as banners, pop-ups, and so on.
I give Google / Youtube my permission to describe my plan, which I gift to them without reservation of any rights to income, as both "theirs" and "not being evil."
Thank you.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
30 second ads are a holdover from the days of non-dvr TV. I honestly love the 5 second ads that they are using now. It's enough time to show your product and your brand.
I have high hopes that the "irritate the viewer into submission" approach to advertising is slowly on the way out. Especially on a platform like YouTube, you aren't even competing for the user's attention. You don't need to grab attention, you already have it. If you irritate the viewer, you get :
1) actual negative reactions to your brand instead of positive
2) ad blockers which damage the viability of the entire platform
3) users muting the audio or putting the phone down until the ad is over in case they are using a platform where there is no viable ad blocker
4) users abandoning the video instead of suffering through the ad
Bottom line is that long, annoying, unskippable ads are counterproductive, but I think #2 is why they are being done away with. I would be amazed if Google isn't tracking and very aware of the damage caused by user reactions #2 and #4.
Just as a personal anecdote, I can remember the names of every brand that shows me a 5 second ad, a few that show skippable long ads, and absolutely zero that show annoying unskippable ones (because I always put the phone down as soon as I see that one is starting). A five second ad isn't long enough to be worth muting or putting the phone down. Crucially, I don't hate the brands in question - but only because the short ads are generally not very annoying. Even in the cases when I don't want the product, I still remember the ad in a more or less positive way.
Let's just hope they don't replace it with something even more annoying.
They spy on our browsing habits. They spy on our communications. They're forcing us to watch things most of us don't care about and waste our time and bandwidth in the process.
All of this, on platforms where we can communicate directly with them and give them feedback on what we actually want and like.
First, give us the option to watch the ads if we want to. That's your first easy-to-get metric. Are people interesting in whatever you're advertising? Second, after the ad, give us options to give our opinion about the product. They have to be clear options that enable us to express our like or dislike about the product, not simple politically-correct bullshit replies.
Trying to force-feed me a 30-seconds ad about a non-vegan meal is offensive to me. Showing me ads for quadcopters is pointless because I have zero interest in these things. Trying to sell me a Mazda CX-5 is useless because I don't have they money, the need or the desire to buy one. Hell I have zero interest in purchasing a SUV, ever. All those ads about commercial-grade networking hardware fall on deaf ears because I'm not in charge of anything even remotely close nor do I work with someone who is.
Instead of letting us build a profile of our own, they try to guess what we want and then complain that "ads are not working".
Idiots.
#DeleteFacebook
Better headline: All users are now installing youtube ad block
In a dozen lifetimes I could hardly scratch all the great content on the internet that's available for free, or with barely any strings attached.
The best defense against the dark arts of advertising is a curiosity streak that's a mile wide.
Two words: substitute good.
At the first sign of trouble, I open alternate tabs like a cowboy after a bar brawl.
I often watch YouTube through Chromecast on my TV. The ads are not skippable and cause all sorts of problems for the video that plays afterward (out-of-sync and stuttering). A few months ago, they put up a 30-MINUTE ad. If they think I am going to suffer through a 30-minute ad before watching a 7-minute video, well they would best think again. I wound up shutting the whole thing down and starting over and researching ways to block ads on Chromecast.
Well, I guess we had it coming...
> Instead of letting us build a profile of our own
unfortunately thats simply not possible. what we want vs what we think we want are very different things.
on some level its always going to be about observation (well, spying).
best we can (and should) expect is transparency and a degree of control of our own profile.
its a brave new world folks.
But the question is: does YouTube work normally (except without ads in from of the videos)? Or does it hang, and refuse to play some videos?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You need to get out of mom's basement, your life sounds depressing.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What the fuck. Kill yourself.
Most users use adblockers in browsers or the iPhone....They now the current models does not work anymore, and have hinted for a while of putting the adverts in the same stream as the video, and not as a separate video...good luck with adblocking then.
Didn't figure it was worthwhile at first, but tried it on a 3-month free trial... and now I love it. Well worth the money, just like Netflix. No ads, some additional video content not otherwise available, and being able to play (audio only of course) in the background while using other apps on Android - or even with the screen off to save power!
William George
Can it block repetitive, spammy ads posted on Slashdot by APK?
Mentioning your software once in response to this story is acceptable, if the post is short and tries to be informative.
Posting about it twice per story is annoying.
Six or seven long posts full of bold text is spam. I may need to dig out my old APK spam blocker again.
We're gonna wait 11 months just to make sure everybody is really sure this is what they want....
I suspect that nearly 1 year wait before implementing this is likely due to contract reasons with with the ad agencies. They are probably required to continue having unskippable ads on some videos until the contracts with the entities that show those types are up for renegotiation/renewal.
This space unintentionally left blank.
They haven't even tried a system like Google Voice, where you have $10 in your account
But if the videos you want to watch are scattered across 12 different sites, you need to have $10 in each of 12 accounts.
Except for some clothing suddenly falling to the ground on an empty pair of shoes with socks in them.
> APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit
No need for your software. DNS RPZ gives you whole LAN protection and beyond. You can even automate block list updates (think SPAMHAUS) or simply delegate RPZ checks to save the trouble.
More info at https://dnsrpz.info/
Most resolvers get bogged down on multi-megabyte HOSTS files. DNS handles hundreds of millions of names without breaking a sweat.
Getting back NXDOMAIN from DNS is faster than attempting a TCP connection at 0 or 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1.
Use software designed for the task at hand, not something that manages a pre-DNS relic from the 1970's.
Instead they'll just make it more annoying to skip ads by hiding the "Skip Ad" button behind a thumbnail of the video you are watching requiring two taps/clicks to skip it.
But I sure as shit hate when they play before (and even after) a video that's less than a minute long.
If I'm about to watch Louis Rossmann repair a logic board or dish about business for half an hour, that's fine.
If I'm about to watch Vanoss, Delirious, et al get up to their gaming shenanigans for half an hour, that's also fine.
But if I'm watching a cat video a few seconds long or checking to see if the remix video I found is the one I'm after, my patience wears thin in short order.
The number of ads that are showing up as commercial breaks within longer videos is getting ridiculous, too, for that matter.
And the goddamn suggested viewing popup ads "You're watching a BlueStahli/Anthrax/(any metal) lyric video! Might we suggest the new Justin Bieber video?"
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
These were pretty good to weed out part of the crappy content. Have one of these in front of your video? Do _not_ get my view let alone subscription, ever!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I have to disagree on "force us to watch". If they try to force me to watch 30 seconds of advertising, they lose me as a viewer at around 5 seconds, likely permanently. As I believe it is the YouTubers decision what ADs to allow, this is as it should work.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Instead of letting us build a profile of our own, they try to guess what we want and then complain that "ads are not working".
Here you go: https://www.google.com/ads/pre...
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
That link never worked for me, I get redirected a few times until I get a "failed to open page".
Besides, when it was working, they kept adding shit automatically that I had to remove.
#DeleteFacebook
That I have with online video ads is that they widely miss the mark with me. Which is interesting because other sites like Facebook, Amazon etc. all pretty much know what I like. And you would think being it's owned Google this wouldn't be the case.
He's already brain-dead, if it counts.
Ezekiel 23:20
The overly aggressive advertising strategies have been very successful at generating short term cash-flow, but also negativity again advertisement even in the general population. And now that more and people are opting out of ads, the companies are starting to backtrack. But I thinks it is a case of to little much to late, and that the well has already been poisoned. At least for me it has already resulted in a zero tolerance for ads.
Wow, APK is bad enough online. Could you imagine _living_ with that?
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
UBlock works on my Android tablet and Android phone. Does your SW work on Android? If not, then it's ridiculous for you to say your SW is superior to UBlock.
I'm not sure one can even use the word "quality" with re to advertising. I guess what I'm trying to say is "the efficacy of advertising has deteriorated."
My impression of what has happened in the advertising industry is that it's reminiscent of the early WWW days when the "blink" tag was still available. Can anyone recall opening a web page and seeing 20 or 30 words blinking on the page? This is what today's advertising has become.
I think most ads today are very guilty of the "blink tag" mentality. I've been seeing more and more ads on TV where they show a different image every half second or every second. Most of the images probably have NO meaningful content with re to the intended product/service message. The ad is simply meant to pummel your visual cortex. It's like getting beat up by the school bully. You'll remember that moment for quite a while.
As far as I'm concerned, as soon as I see a lot of image changes, I change channels until the ad is over. I already mute the TV whenever an ad comes on so changing up or down one channel is no big deal. And I've gotten fairly good at timing it to return when the ad is over.
The other thing they're doing is "flashing" or "strobing" the screen. They're inserting a bright white flash when switching between the segments that make up the ad. And I mean these flashes are incredibly bright.
I was drawn into our sun room one night because I saw flashing in there. When I entered the sun room, I became aware of our neighbors to the north and slightly west. They live on the other side of our block. They're backyard is against the backyard of a neighbor who lives two houses north from us. Their TV screen is positioned so that it is visible through one of their windows. Now this is easily more than 200 feet away. The flashing I was seeing was from their TV while a commercial was on. It literally lit up the entire inside of our sun room with each burst of light.
I think the current generation of people who do all the special effects used in ads are suffering from the not unusual behavior of "gee, this effect is cool... I'm going to use it every chance I get."
This is one of the reasons I've been watching more PBS lately. I abhor commercial TV. It's like sticking one's head into a sewer hoping to retrieve a lost item.
If the advertising business is REALLY sincere about making quality ads, then go back to your lessons from advertising and marketing 101. The single most important feature in ANY advertising is "message" (aka, content). If you have a product/service you're trying to promote, then develop a message that speaks _clearly_ to the target audience. (eg, Our product is better because...) Oh yeah, and one more very important feature; ie, truth. If you have to manipulate or deceive people into becoming your customers, you don't have a product/service to sell. You belong in a midway at a county fair.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
just to replace it with an Unskippable 60-Second Ads instead. Oh wait...
I cannot conceive of the hell that would be. He keeps begging me for my real name, maybe so he can torment me IRL like he tries to do here?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Considering you are responding to someone suggesting a local DNS resolver, what does that have to do with a remote DNS resolver? Face it, your software is an archaic relic of a bygone era of computing. DNS is by far the better option in all situations.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Technically, it does, but it is so painfully slow to use hosts files in his way that it isn't worth even trying to do it.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
His vitamin B-12 levels might be low according to an earlier Slashdot article to this one.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Even while being a "software janitor", he still contributes more to the world than you do. Why do you feel the need to attack every person that points out how much of a nuisance you are?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Thank you for proving the point, attack attack attack. Keep it up, it just makes you look worse every time.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I have never lied about you APK. You just convieniently forget previous conversations, where I have proven my assertions, and I don't have the time or inclination to correct you repeatedly. Perhaps you should stop making shit up and pretending you "won" the argument when you are clearly wrong.
Lol, you think I want to face you? Why would I, when you are clearly a disturbed individual?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm doing it, I'm doing it!
Now, since you failed to actually ask for anything in your message there, I would like to know what exactly you think I need to justify yet again, and explain to you.
Do you need the birds and the bees explained to you yet again? Did you forget the mechanics of "it"?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?