YouTube Ready to Make Money

According to a recent patent filing, it may get easier for the masses to create advertisements for YouTube. The patent, released January 14th 2010, is for a Video Overlay Advertisement Creator. Overlay ads are the text ads that appear in the lower quarter of a video and can be accompanied by an image:

Looking at the details in the patent image, you can see that YouTube is taking the overlay ad to a new, more customizable level:

(click to enlarge)

Some of the customizable features present in the patent:

• Ability to upload and place an image to the left or right
• Ability to change text and background color
• Two ad segments with different text & ability to change image
• Multiple click actions
• Play a video ad (by YouTube id) then link to site
• Link to site w/ no video ad
• Choose different overlay entrance styles
• Slide and Wipe
• Elastic
• Pop from Center
• Test your ad against a variety of background videos

I think we can all agree that this will make overlay ad creation easier and more accessible. Combine this ad generator with Google’s Video Targeting Tool and you now have a way to place your overlay ad on videos based on keywords (like politics or fashion), viewer demographics (like age and gender), interest-based categories, or some combination of the three. AWESOME !

The only thing not discussed in the patent is the bidding system for these overlay ads. Will these overlays be CPC or CPM based ? What if multiple advertisers want to advertise on the same video ? If anyone has any insight on this, please chime in on the comment board.