It’s in the ads, or at least that’s what Google is banking on in the latest scheme to make YouTube a big profit centre.
Since Google bought YouTube for $1.6 billion at the end of 2006, three questions, in one form or another, have continued to circulate in the social media fishbowl:
1: How will Google make YouTube profitable?
2: Given that YouTube’s platform can be (and has been) replicated very easily, can YouTube continue to own the lion’s share of popularity without reimbursing its content creators for their efforts?
3: Will YouTube maintain credibility and dominance once the advertisers get into the platform?
The latest YouTube advertising announcement attempts to kill 3 birds with one stone.
“Professional content producers — those who come equipped with their own ad-sales teams — are now able to sell advertising on their YouTube channels. This includes the click-to-expand overlays that run across the bottoms of YouTube videos, and display units on the page that hosts the video player. The revenue is split between the content creator and YouTube, just as it would be if YouTube sold the ads.” – AdAge
It’s not as intrusive as pre-roll ads, not as potentially disastrous as clashing brands in page wrappers, and the revenue sharing idea is the right on the money for social media.
However …
Most ad agencies’ efforts in “social media” amount to posting TV spots online. Will placing an ad on an ad do anything for their brands? Not to mention that generating direct revenue for an ad with an ad will create a new quagmire of legal and accounting concerns for both media companies and their clients.
It’s the videos from non-professional sources that continue to be the most popular and in turn, prove the real value in YouTube. So, how will this initiative put cash into the pockets of “Joe Avatar” who posts his latest skateboarding dog clip?
Even if they figure these issues out, interactive ads are intrusive to a certain degree and is it possible that this will affect the user experience from a total-site-experience point of view? What’s next? Paid subscription so you don’t have your videos overlaid by ads?
… Ahh crap … That’s probably next.
I continue to love YouTube. They may have to work harder than this one in order to answer question #1.
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