AdSense Video Units? What’s Wrong (or Right) with This Picture? | Google Tuesdays

(If you’re an AdSense Publisher, this video will show you how to get started.)

On Monday, Google announced on the Inside AdSense blog and later on the official blog, the debut of AdSense Video Units.

The last time I heard the words “AdSense” and “Video” together, I was excited then because I thought that they were saying that they had enough inventory, as well as the technology, to splice AdSense Video Ads into videos, I assumed through YouTube somehow.

I’ve soon learned to keep my premature AdSense Video in Video Content fantasies to myself. Why should I dream of things that make sense?

My fantasy is, of course, that I could provide all my premium tutorial and/or entertainment content for free through ad-sponsored video, after developing a wide enough video audience to boast a targeted audience of tens of thousands. Kind of like my own mini-TBS. And this may be a step in the right direction. (I’ll tell you why I say “may” momentarily.)

The announcement as phrased makes it seem like it’s going in that direction at least.

Video units enable AdSense publishers to display videos from several YouTube content partners. The video units are ad-supported, and the ads are relevant to both the video and the site content, as well as unobtrusive. AdSense publishers and YouTube content partners will receive a share of the ad revenue, so video units enable both groups to earn incremental revenue.

This is potentially quite empowering to AdSense publishers and YouTube publishers alike, as far as the possible revenue. In fact, the thing that bothers me about this isn’t the fact that there’s possible ad relevancy issues. When I watch Boston Legal, stuff pops up that isn’t exactly relevant to the content of a comedy-drama about a bunch of emotionally challenged, lovable lawyers. No system is perfect. I’d be more inclined to target demographics than content when it comes to video.

The thing that worries me is that, while splicing some type of advertising into YouTube videos is a step to actually being able to match video ads with video content, something about the way this stepping stone is being implemented feels like a step in the wrong direction.

It first crossed my eyes when I looked at the story as reported on CNET. I saw the screenshot of the setup and said to myself … “Ermph”.

Not ugly, but not really appealing either. And the banner ad seemed so… 1998.

I’m not being a Google basher – and I think hateration (I can’t believe I just used that word) for the sake of being a hater is counter-productive. For sure, I’m going to put this to the test and report back to you.

Still, this just feels a bit off to me. I can’t quit put my finger on it, but it feels incongruent.

You can get some links to other naysaying on AdSense – Video Unit mixing from the mathewingram.com/work blog if you’d like to read more perspectives.

And video publishers will also want to hear Jim Kukral’s take on what an opportunity AdSense Video Units can shape up to be for video publishers, which is very close to my vision, only, of course, you have to be one of the selected partners first.

But let’s also not forget that the syndicated content provider isn’t the only one who benefits here. Publishers have a share in that revenue. Game on, as Jim says.

Indeed. I have about six sites to put back into testing mode based on this.

Here are some more links to stories about this:

Search Engine Watch Puts It Simply
SearchEngineLand Has a Bit more Depth and links to help pages
Wired talks more about the content provider side.