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.
