This morning I’m reading about Google’s plans to add video to Adsense (example of ad):

Finally, unlike some intrusive advertising, users will have complete control. When a page loads, only a static image will be visible; the video will not start playing until the user initiates it. He or she will be able to advance the video, pause it, adjust the volume or click through to the advertiser’s site.

Nice that Google isn’t making these things autoplay. There seems to be some mystery at the moment surrounding whether or not Adsense affiliates will be able to opt-out of these. Jensense seems confident the answer is no:

I am disappointed to see that publishers are not able to opt-out of video ads, although this is not surprising since they also do not allow you to opt-out of flash ads, something that has been a pet peeve of mine since flash ads launche

Does anybody know the official word on this one? My guess is this will be treated like image ads in Adsense and indeed, it will be an option for affiliates. However, if Google chooses to ram this down all Adsense affiliates throats with no opt-out they better put on the fireproof suits.

I just refreshed Techcrunch and Arrington listed six reasons he thinks they will fail. Nathan over at Inside Google seems more positive about their outlook:

These ads can be extremely valuable, for two reasons: Because they require the interaction of the user, they are valuable to the advertiser, since it is quite clear that the user noticed and watched the ad, and was at least somewhat interested in its content, unlike every single other type of ad.

Would like to actually see the ads around first, but I’m leaning more towards con than pro. I really appreciate Google remembering that users hate intrusive ads. How many people are going to click and watch video ads? Really? Seriously? Arrington makes the point if it is one of those cool ads that everybody wants to see, it will go viral all over YouTube and other video sites without the advertiser needing to pay (listen up, marketing departments). I think something like Microsoft is working on where the ads are content embedded makes much more sense. I would click on some cool Tablet PC being used at the CTU in 24.

[Related site note: we replaced Adsense at Hmm with Yahoo Publishing Network ads here again. Adsense will return most likely (in past tests Adsense has beat out YPN in both ad relevance and income). When Microsoft releases their context ads, we’ll likely be trying those too.]

Did this post make you go hmm?

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