What’s in YOUR content?

Since Google bought YouTube, they’ve made several attempts to monotize their content. They floated the idea of premercials, but users revolted, noting that most YouTube videos were so short, it wasn’t worth watching a 30-second ad to watch a 15-second clip of a cat riding a skateboard. Google also maintains the copious banner ads that appear on the site, but adblockers often make short work of them. And while AdWords appear from time to time, they’ll likely have to wait for some sort of content recognition to be effective. A little money comes in from gigantic advertisers, but one thing Google has always shown itself to be adept at is reaching the little guy.

YouTube’s latest monotization attempt comes in the form of ads  that pop up at the bottom of the video during play (pdf). While users can click to remove them, they appear randomly and are built into the player, so adblockers can’t find them (yet). And while everyone acknowledges that YouTube needs monotization from somewhere to remain free (they’ve probably got the biggest bandwidth and storage bill on the internet), a new Ipsos study shows a gap between users who accept ads in TV shows streamed online and those who would accept the same for YouTube.

Ars Technica theorizes that this is because users are already used to seeing ads in their TV, while they aren’t used to it with their YouTube, but I suspect that it’s because users understand that while someone has to pay for that episode of Heroes to be produced, and are willing to subsidize it, they also understand that the popup that’s appearing on someone’s YouTube video is likely not going toward a revenue share with the creator, and they don’t see YouTube’s hosting as a value add to the point that they would put up with interruptions.

For non-profits, though, these popup ads raise an interesting question: what’s going to appear in the middle of your video? Is your ad asking people to protest a company’s action going to see that company’s ad appear? Will Congressional candidates be attacked for ads that appear in their video, the same way they’ve been attacked for the places their ads appear? I suspect this loss of message control may scare some non-profits away from YouTube and toward other services, like BrightCove, where they have more control over their content.