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Big Ads and Captions to Make YouTube More Like… TV!

Posted by Internet Guru
August 28, 2008

So there are two items to do with YouTube that are making their way around the tech news world. One to do with big billboards that would take up a good portion of the site’s front page real estate – if only briefly upon visitors’ initial arrival; and another to do with captioning, for the hard of hearing and those who don’t happen to speak all the languages of the world.

It goes without saying that the tale behind door number one is naturally bound for bigger headlines than the other, but both may actually prove quite important and potentially very beneficial to the video site. One will presumably make more money for the company, while the other helps bridge quite a few divides. A win-win?

We’ll

have to wait and see. SAI’s Michael Learmonth says YouTube is teasing names in the entertainment industry to stand as test cases for the effort, whom it plans to charge the general going rate for the square banner unit now in place: $200,000. If all goes well, a bump in rates can be expected to occur sometime next season. As per convention, YouTube isn’t entertaining the hearsay, valid or not.

Logically the new ad push would be what the bean counters would probably regard as “better to do than not do.” Considering YouTube’s gradual migration to a more officially-sanctioned, premium-content-rich archive, the project would more or less be a boon. But as with anything this “big,”there are tradeoffs. Some would accuse YouTube of losing itself, and the user-generated stuff manufactured by Average Joe and Jane would presumably decline. Or at least waver on a more stagnant plane, because of all the corporate whatever that’s impinging on users’ experience.

At this junction, though, YouTube has no choice. The sacrifice must be made in order to better that bottom line, and now is as good a time as any. If it were to have made the change years ago, it wouldn’t have been managing the sort of traffic it is today. Which wouldn’t have convinced premium content producers — be they from Hollywood or the virally-blessed indie set — to come aboard at the rate some have in the last 12 months or so. Which wouldn’t have given YouTube the potential monetary value and influence it is often claimed to have.

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