Mobile advertising would seem to have gotten big enough for Youtube to get interested. The free video sharing site announced this week that it will be serving advertisements on the mobile versions of its website.
What’s the story?
The sheer amount of data being streamed over mobile devices may be making operators tear their hair out, but services like Youtube love it. According to the Youtube business blog, mobile site traffic grew by over 160% in 2009, with tens of millions of videos being watched EVERY DAY on mobile phones.
So now Youtube will be serving ads on the American and Japanese versions of the m.youtube.com – on the home, search, and browse pages.
Various test campaigns have already been run by Youtube, with big brands like Sony, Kia, L’Oreal and Land Rover – and based on that experience, Youtube will be selling mobile website banner ads on a day-by-day basis.
What we think?
It’s the big question about Youtube – how the hell do you make money from something like that? If you start charging people for it, they stop using it. Your only option really is advertising – and the more channels it advertises through, the better. Mobile is something of a blessing for Youtube, really.
As long as there’s free media, there’ll be advertising. There’s no escape for users / operators and for many media publishers, the next step is to bombard users with ads until they surrender to a paid version which is entirely anti-consumer experience (cough…Pandora…cough).
Google is too smart and has too much money to simply slap banners on a site. I hope they don’t disappoint.
—Ivan
I agree, mobile is somewhat of a blessing for YouTube. But you also need to look at Google’s model. YouTube was purchased with one thought in mind: to create another media channel and expand their search technology realm.
Think about what YouTube is… Many videos on YouTube are ads disguised as entertainment videos. Many people go there to watch ads, that advertisers normally have to pay to watch on TV or other media channels. So for businesses and normal users, there is no wonder it is a top site on the internet. Video is addictive and viral and is not going away any time soon.
In addition, I do not believe Google will ever charge people to use YouTube, that would go against their entire business model. Their model is to create FREE services for most people to use and then offer that traffic to businesses that hope to target those very same customers. But with the analytics data, search data and all the other aggregate data they are able to gleen from their own technology, they offer advertisers more than just traffic.
What I would predict is Google will continue to test and adapt different types of ads and advertising methods to YouTube, working to find the proper control for users as to not run them off, but at the same time give advertisers as much bang for their buck as they can.
While at the same time, I also expect that at some point in the future, YouTube will offer a premium version or two of some type for users to take advantage of. Perhaps more space, better technology, editing tools or something for publishers of media or other business type users to really set themselves apart. Much like they have done with Google Apps for Businesses and other organizations to take advantage.
After all Google Video, has gone away for regular users and has been turned into a tool for premium Google Apps users. YouTube and Google Video use the same technology, but they are different platforms now, designed for different users.
In addition, look at the secret social network that Google has been putting together. I see YouTube as a big part of that, integrating with nearly every other social site on the planet. Google also has a great philosophy that will take them very far, of not necessarily wanting to beat everyone. But in some cases, just partner with them. They open their API’s to nearly everything and most of the content or add-on tools they have available, are created by users of their basic technology.
Mobile advertising and other mobile services, that I am sure that will be coming in the near future, are ingenious on the part of YouTube and Google and probably only the tip of the iceberg.