YouTube becomes TheirTube

August 22nd, 2007

All good things must come to an end!  I’ve enjoyed the fast streaming of video content on YouTube for the past couple of years and it’s ad-free nature, but that all ends today. 

Instead of a pre-roll (which everyone hates) Google have decided on an overlay that appears 15 seconds into the video and animates for up to 10 seconds then disappears.  The overlay is clickable to display the ad.

These are being rolled out selectively across the network but it won’t be long before there’s a full take up.  Ad’s will cost $20 CPM.   Great?  Not really…

The biggest problem I have with this is that they are profiting directly from user’s content, surely a portion of the ad revenue should go back to the user whose video it is overlayed on?  Additionally the user should be able to have some say over the ad content that is allowed to appear on their material.

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Entry Filed under: YouTube, Social Media, google