Advertisements will soon make their way into YouTube videos, two non-Google sources familiar with the site’s plans said.
ClickZ reports that YouTube will get a major facelift on April 16. Tabs for Movies, Music, Shows and Videos will replace the current layout of Home, Videos, Channels and Community. The videos section will remain home to user-generated content while the other tabs will host premium content from Google’s network and studio partners. The premium content will host in-stream advertisements, one advertising agency executive said.
The online video site — by far the most popular on the Internet — will also come to resemble Hulu, with a light-dimming feature that reduces brightness around the video frame and hash marks that show when the next ads will appear. The executive said it’s "totally a Hulu approach, but that’s best practices right now."
According to another source, the ad scheme will differ slightly in that Google doesn’t plan to sell entire episodes to one advertiser. That means the Hulu practice of showing the same ad repeatedly probably won’t happen on YouTube.
While all of this movement suggests that fresh content is on the way, ClickZ says nothing specific has been revealed. For now, YouTube’s premium content includes dated television shows such as "MacGyver" and "Star Trek." Hopefully that will change, because a redesign with little more than intrusive ads to show for it wil be a disappointment.
4 Comments
@ A_Trac, thats not too far off from the truth already. Yahoo.ca used to allow pop access from outlook, now you need to pay for that privelage. If not, then you must login to the website where you get to read all ther ads while your waiting for the laggy website to load.
The only issue I have with Hulu, which seems to be solved in Youtube, is watching the same ad all the time. (Granted, I am also desensitized and don't pay attention to ads like Zzyzxroad, but when you keep seeing the same ad over and over, it gets really annoying.)
Of course, that may be the point, because eventually you notice the ad because its annoying, but then, the end result will most likely be you NOT buying their product, which I suspect is not what they were intending when showing the ad...lol.
Just my rant for the day.
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