Google has announced that it has started showing video ads while you’re watching videos on YouTube. The ads will be shown 15 seconds into the video you are watching but will only fill 20% of the screen. If after 10 seconds you haven’t clicked the ad, it will disappear.
Google are obviously realising the potential revenues they are missing out on, and projections suggest that these videos ads could generate $4.3bn dollars for Google in the US alone by 2011. That’s not bad, for a site that had no proven revenue model and was bought by Google for $1.65bn!
The only question is, how frustrating are these ads going to be? We all find TV ads annoying, and they don’t appear in the corner of the screen, distracting you from what you’re watching. I guess we’ll have to wait and see!