Right now I feel pretty bad for the YouTube team because of all the vulgar comments they’re receiving over the recent addition of video overlay ads. Most of the comments are irrelevant to helping YouTube improve the ad experience for the users, and if you decide to go look through the comments I’m sure you would see how immature some people can really be.
I’ve had a chance to interact with one of the video ads (pictured above) and I don’t understand why people despise them so much. The first time I saw one of the ads it was for The Simpsons Movie, and it really caught my attention. I was drawn into the ad, and even found myself compelled to watch it. It only takes up the lower 20% of the video, is heavily transparent, and it will disappear after a few seconds if you don’t click on it. Or there is always the "X" in the corner to manually close the ad.
Crazily enough the anti-ad outcry has been heard and there is a Firefox extension, called TubeStop, that will block YouTube ads. It does so by replacing the standard YouTube player with an "embedded" one…the same one you’ll find on other non-YouTube sites. This works because YouTube is currently not showing the ads on videos that are embedded on other sites.
So my real question is why would you want to block YouTube ads? I can only imagine how much money it costs to run YouTube because of the extreme bandwidth usage, but as of 1-year ago the associated costs were reported to be $1 million per month! Since that time their traffic has almost trippled, and I can’t imagine that the cost to run it has gotten any cheaper. Not only that but I’ve heard that a portion of the ad revenue is given to the authors of the video, and by leaving the ads you’re thereby supporting them.
Maybe I feel this way because we run our own site and rely on advertising for our income, but all I know is that you’ve got to support the sites you use the most. They’re not asking you to fork out money from your own pocket…all they’re trying to do is give the advertisers and viewers the best experience possible. I’d much prefer to see this type of video ads rather than the ones that are shown for the first 15-seconds of the video.
Source: Mashable
Hey Ryan, I mostly agree with what you’re saying–blocking ads from web sites you like and rely on is not the coolest. However, I think YouTube has crossed somewhat of a line with the overlay ads, which are more along the lines of pop-over ads than regular embedded ads. As soon as ads start directly interfering with the content, I call lame.
I know that overlay ads are probably the best way to get click-throughs, and we’ll probably all get used to them in time (they’re so much like regular TV ads, anyway), but I think they are unnecessarily obtrusive. YouTube is still a web site like any other, and there’s plenty of room for traditional banners and the like.
I agree with the comments that ads should play as they have it on youtube. Nothing more annoying on film previews on the net when they have a 15-20 second ad before it…You feel as though it pressures you into watching the ads, when most of us would turn off/change sites and find another without the pre-play versions.
Even better that YT pay a % to the vid in question being played – Fair play.
could someone post a link with an youtube lower20 ad.i checked out the Simpson’s trailer no ad popped up.maybe adblock and/or noscript blocks those ads?
The ads don’t bother me a bit. If YouTube can stay free to all with these ads, then I’m more than happy to put up with them
Yeah, ads are alright….until they get intrusive. Putting ads in videos like that is BS and intrusive…so they’ll be getting blocked by me.
Then again, I don’t do a whole ton of Youtubing, and I could do without it…so whatever.
Also, I block ads globally because I never click on them to begin with, so why waste time loading them?
I’m sure YouTube call it lame when people using their service refused to let them have any revenue from it. If we hadn’t all got Adblockers installed they wouldn’t have to overlay them. It’s better than having click through Ads at least.
I’d say it’s *very* unlikely that anything but a tiny fraction of people who use YouTube every day have any sort of ad-blocking going on in their browser.
But what about the DoubleClick ads (I wonder why they haven’t switched to Google Ads yet, though. Maybe because the whole acquisition thing.) on YouTube.com? Don’t they bring in enough revenue?
1 million a month is nothing for google.
For starters I’ve heard now that Google is letting publishers opt-in to the advertising program. If the video developers don’t want these ads to show up on their movies, then they won’t be there. So if you see them now you know it isn’t YouTube’s fault, because they weren’t the ones who ultimately made the decision.
I think that they are far less obtrusive than the ones that you are forced to watch before a video will start playing. I find these 100 times better in that I can close out the ad.
I’m with you on this one. I think this is completely fair.
Amen to that!
You don’t have to click on all the ads in order for sites to make money and for you to therefore support the sites. Many ads (even ones being served here) pay out just for the ad getting displayed. So even though you might not be clicking on them, by blocking the ads you’re still doing more harm than you may realize.
I’ve actually been wondering the same thing, but I’m not sure if the acquisition has been 100% completed yet.
Well, it would be more like $3 million a month by this point. Sure it may seem like nothing for Google, but there has to be something in it for them as well.
When I’m on youtube, I clicked through to see a particular video, not an ad from something I don’t care about. If I’m constantly having to click an ‘x’ to get rid of something, I’m going to grow tired of that very quickly. I’m even at a point right now of considering unsubscribing to people who have opted for these ads just to make a point. I don’t want to watch their content if it’s going to have ads in them I’m clicking out of all the time.
Traditionally speaking, Ads have always occupied their own space on websites. This crosses the line.
Well you missed the mark on this one. People click on videos for content not for 2/3’s of a video but for the full video. If I wanted that crap on the bottom of the video I’d go looking for it. Think about it overlays have been possible on regular TV for sometime but there has been very little interest in it. Do you know why? Because of the massive backlash the advertisers would get. Youtube has been a top site for some time. One of the reasons for this is that the service has been so good that people never had any reason to look elsewhere. You talk about google’s need for revenue what happens when these adds drive people to other sites? Lastly I never thought about ad blocking software till this crap kept poping up now I’m blocking them all.
I’m sorry but the ads take up slightly more than 20%. It is more like 30%. It’s been getting more and more annoying for a while now too. In fact, after watching a video just now, I’m finding myself blocked from being able to click on related videos by an ad that is taking up exactly 50% of the window (Ads by Google). This was the last straw and I am now looking for ways to block them permanently. Sure, TV shows have similar ads (the Ghost Hunters one on Sci-Fi channel sure is annoying, two guys walking on screen with flashlights is highly distracting and sucks you right out of your show) but at least they don’t play through the entire show. Just imagine if they did! I understand a websites need for revenue, but at the same time they need to understand that running a business on the internet is very competitive and I don’t have to use their site at all. Is it really worth making your users irate over ads that almost nobody clicks? Seriously stupid.
To put it simply: When a youtube video finishes, a google advert covers all the links to related videos. :-< Why?
Very seriously stupid!
I didn’t mind them so much when they were irregular, but now that so many users are putting them in their vids, I too am actively searching for ways to block them. I’m also looking for viable alternatives to Youtube… shame, really, as I love youtube, but the ads are now more intrusive than not.
A few weeks ago I turned off Adblock on YouTube, and the pop-in ads really annoyed me. It covered part of my video and was trying to sell me an expensive ringtone subscription. The ads annoyed me so much that I re-enabled Adblock. I’ll check back when YouTube revises its ad strategy. For example, I wouldn’t mind a 5 second pre-roll ad.
I actually agree with you. I haven’t turned the ads off, but they are starting to get really annoying. Mostly because they’re just text ads that often are poorly targeted in the video. And it’s too bad that they don’t make the ad slide down after like 5 seconds.
i block the overlay adds and the adds on the side because the computer i primarily watch youtube with lags when the adds pop up or when a flash add appears on the side. if they could just stick to non-animated adds i would be happy to let them appear but i just cant if it lags the video.
Little FYI: “ad” is short for advertisement. Since you don’t write advertisement with two D’s it’s “ad” and not “add”.
I have never experienced a lag because of the ads, but if YouTube does lag on your computer with ads enabled, you have another good reason to disable them.