Google: YouTube Not Earning Enough Money
CEO Eric Schmidt of Google says his company is prioritizing revenue generation for YouTube this year. He admits they still haven’t figured out how to make good money from the video sharing service, which it has acquired for a hefty $1.65 billion.
Google has experimented with the usual in-line ads which appear with the videos and pop-up ads that are overlaid on the player screen. Reactions to these have been mixed. According to CNET news, a lot of YouTube users found them distracting and some video uploaders have wondered if they can get revenue shares from the ads.
Google defended itself by quoting research data that shows viewers tend to dislike having to sit through a commercial before a video is played. According to executives, using pop-ups is the least intrusive way to get people to watch ads on YouTube.
Schmidt however, says that the best products are yet to come and he’s not giving any clue as to what they are, and they’re not just about in-line ads. But what’s certain is that they’re still going to be about ads and getting people—targeted ones—to watch them.
Posted in News
May 5th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
This is just amazing! Television advertising is a mega multi-billion dollar industry yet the web’s (supposedly) best and brightest can’t figure out how to monetize videos on the web that are being watched by the same people whose attention spans command top-dollar from TV advertisers.
Could the answer be… commercials? As long as they’re short and sweet site traffic and user activity shouldn’t suffer. Sure, competitors will come along offering commercial-free YouTube alternatives, but these will also inevitably need to make money to stay in business. A competitor that doesn’t have the means or the wherewithal turn a profit isn’t much of a competitor.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Yes, it is indeed amazing. But like Google said, the best is yet to come, and it’s only a question of what form the ads will take and how they are presented to the audience for maximum effectiveness.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:26 am
All they have to do is make the user interact with the ad like a facebook app. Or they could charge people for a premium service like Flickr does, but Google for some reason always refuses to do that.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I know there has to be advertising…I think YouTube and the video owner will have to get together, though not all owners will want to (or be able to) share in the ad revenue. The owner would need a direct deposit account, so Google would make money esp. from those videos that do not share revenue. I HATE HAVING TO SIT THROUGH ADS!!!! Putting ads first would suck dirt!!
May 19th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I’m glad it’s Google having to figure it out, no matter what they do someone will disagree. Though I have to agree with the masses, watching a commercial prior to getting what I requested sucks. Take IGN, Fox, and so many other networks that insert the ads before the requested content. It is frustrating for those as impatient as myself. The good news is that with most networks, more often than not intro ads are sporadic. Imagine having to sit through a commercial before every YouTube video you wanted to watch…
June 20th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I have had the most expensive, fattest-bandwidth connection available to the internet every year since AOL was first formed. Even still, I have never yet sat through a single ad online. Not one. If it makes me wait, it’s breaking the Cardinal rule of the internet… Period.
I do have faith that Google knows this and the upcoming monetization format won’t make us wait. I just hope it’s really great!