The battle is similar, but the battlefield has changed. Instead of a one to many, top down system, the net is a distributed, many to many, asynchronous area. Some sites like Galacticast are receiving more money in viewer paid sponsorship than ad revenue.

A personal example is I really like the TV show “Heroes” and missed the last two weeks. So I watched them on the Heroes website the last two episodes. I became annoyed with the hair commercial that repeated on the first episode. At one pont the clickable link that flashed in and out on my lcd monitor continued into the show (an error in how it worked.) And then in the second episode the Direct TV commercial take off on Back to the Future repeating became more annoying to me.

Now if there were multiple links on the page next to the video to independent and mainstay comic books (DC, Marvel, etc.) I would mostly likely click on one or more of them. I would quite likely spend time on their sites and could very well order a comic book. And I would find that a satisfying experience.

This is the same battle from traditional media but now just for new media, ultimately you have to find a level playing ground for both the consumer and the advertiser. It is the advertiser that pays the bill but it is also the consumers who drive traffic and enable you to have advertisers. Consumers hate commercials but as of late consumers are not flocking to pay for content and how hard would it be as a consumer to decide what content to pay for and which ones not to pay for. We are no longer bound by time schedules in order to consume our media it is completely asynchronous which then adds another problem for some potential advertisers. I agree with Chris that ads must be placed in the video itself in order to gain maximum exposure through multiple directories and venues.

Yes, when it comes to advertising most viewers will prefer to select it rather than have it pushed on them. The distributed net allows viewer selection of ad viewing and most viewers will prefer that.

–Chris…

Currently you do not have a seperate play area on devices like iPods, mobile phones and such where supplementary items like Ads can appear. But you can position ads off the main video image area. If you size your video to not fill the screen text and small image and video ads can appear below the video (that would probably be the preferred area.) Such ads would actually be better placed to go along with relevant content in the main video rather than breaking it up at start, middle or end.

The point is not that video Ads are mismatched to the video content — this will eventually be solved — but does a viewer, if given a choice, want to watch an Ad within the video. The proposition is that given the choice most viewers will prefer to choose to watch an Ad provided outside the video rather than automatically be given one at some point in the video. In other words, you watch a fun video about go cart racing that last three minutes, will you continue to watch an Ad for home refinancing at the end or just skip it? And if that Ad is at the beginning or middle will you unsubscribe from that feed? If the ad is off the side of the video and you have the choice to watch it or not, would you prefer that? My answer is that most people prefer the last choice and that’s where video on distributed networks will eventually be.

1.) In-video Ads are bad [because]
2.) Ads not in context are bad.

I think 2 is true. An upbeat gum ad following your videoblog of a funeral would chew.

I think #1 is the trick of it all. If you do out-of-video ads, it requires people to come back to your destination site to find the ads you laid out there. It means that distribution to multiple platforms and viewing experiences is discouraged. It means looking for fewer eyeballs all over the wired and wireless world, instead of seeking more views for more cash.

Imagine that you could ONLY watch Jay Leno in his studio. (I wouldn’t watch him even there, but just use this as an example). Would people pay as much to see him? Would he be as relevant?

So, if you want to simultaneously have your video drive revenue *and* add more and more viewers, I think you have to shoot for in-line ads.

But THEN, it’s a matter of wanting them to be relevant. For my blog, I like how FeedBurner gives me the chance to approve or reject every single ad campaign. It allows me full control of what goes onto the site. I’d like that freedom in a video ad platform.

So, if one wants to make money from their video efforts, I think tying the value to the actual media helps your distribution goals.

Your mileage may vary. Great thing to consider. Thanks for posting it.

Interesting essay. The problem definitely exists — of mis-matched ads appearing in videos. I don’t think that problem is solved by having ads run alongside the video, in a sidebar of some sort. You are still stuck with the same problem of possible mismatches. (Just a picture-video mismatch, instead of video-video mismatch.)

Until all these advertising issues are solved, video over the web will definitely be held back. (Since, of course, advertising is what pays for most video content.) There’s also the fragmentation issue, which was mentioned in Shelly Palmer’s essay on TV/Video Web Inversion. Basically — advertisers want to reach large groups of people at once. Now, how can they reach the same amount of people via the web as they could on traditional TV? There is currently no real system in place, and one will have to come about.

- Allie