Musings about my first love - Technology !
Google's another attempt to monetize on YouTube
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
In its continuing effort to find a way to make money from its YouTube unit, Google introduced on Tuesday a type of e-commerce ad that YouTube users can click to buy digital goods from Apple’s iTunes or Amazon.com.
Under the new program, viewers of a video with a music track, for example, would be able to click on an icon to download that song from one of the two music stores. "If you like the song, you don’t need to leave Google or leave the site to buy it,” said Bakari Brock, business affairs counsel at YouTube.
The new ad format is the latest that YouTube has introduced in recent months as it tries to turn the site’s large audience into substantial revenue. So far, that effort has met with limited success, according to many analysts.
Google, which paid $1.65 billion for YouTube nearly two years ago, is counting on the video site to help it expand into new forms of advertising at a time when the growth of its core business — small text ads that appear next to search results — is slowing down.
Mr. Brock said the new ads were YouTube’s first step toward building a viable e-commerce platform. For now, the program is limited to buying songs from EMI or the Universal Music Group on iTunes and Amazon. The recently released video game Spore is also available, Mr. Brock said. Over time, YouTube plans to expand the program to include other stores and other merchandise, like concert tickets, he said.
Music labels could choose to place the e-commerce links next to their own videos or on videos uploaded by users, whose images or soundtrack they identified using YouTube’s Content ID system, which allows content owners to find unauthorized material on the site.
Google executives have sent mixed messages about their ability to make money from YouTube. Earlier this year, Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said it had taken longer than he expected to find the right advertising models for YouTube. Last month, he said that he was satisfied with YouTube’s progress.
“You Tube is a huge end-user success and we are awaiting the monetization that goes with that, and we believe it will come,” Mr. Schmidt said. “We are where we should be.”
Peekaboo:
On Tuesday, YouTube also introduced a larger viewer that it said was suitable for the growing number of long-format videos available on the site.
On Tuesday, YouTube also introduced a larger viewer that it said was suitable for the growing number of long-format videos available on the site.
Labels: Google, Technology
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