In its first big push into providing ads on its video inventory, Google (GOOG) announced it will launch a new initiative for YouTube starting Wednesday.
The way it will work is in providing an overlay or "skin" across the bottom of the video player screen. The "skin" will appear at the beginning of the video in an animated form, asking the viewer to interact with an ad or trailer. The ad will disappear in about 10 seconds if the viewer doesn't click on it.
Continuing on with their advertising philosophy, Google will only present ads on a limited basis on specific professional and amateur producers of content.
"We're working with select partners ... (including) people who are original content creators who have bubbled up and become popular," said YouTube product manager Shiva Rajaraman. "What we're not doing is throwing this randomly across video on our site."
As with other online studies, the company discovered through polling that 73 percent of viewers weren't opposed to advertising if it kept the content free. Another 67 percent added that they didn't think ads interfered with their YouTube experience.
The company is smart to keep their offerings limited. The recent problems experienced by Facebook reveal there are definitely problems in the user-generated content space when spreading advertising randomly across a network.
Google also said there will probably be more ways of advertising offered soon, as the company doesn't believe there is only one answer to a problem.
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