Bloggerati breakdown: What do Google video ads mean?
Today Valleywag slogs through Techmeme so you don't have to, to cover the chatter about Google's video ads. The official story: Google's adding click-to-play video ads to its AdWords program (on host sites, not google.com). The takes: It's either doomed, perfect, or the first step toward AdWords TV.
- Philip Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped finds click-to-play as unobtrusive as text ads. But will readers mistake video for normal content? (And on sites like ZDNet, would anyone notice the difference?)
- Some blog called the New York Times cites marketers saying that small advertisers will chase this ad space before large brands — "No one will click to watch a Pampers ad." The NYT's lede makes the unsupported claim that Google will soon gun for TV ads.
- TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington predicts a flop. "First," he says, "Google needs to eat its own dogfood." His commenters are divided.
- Search Engine Journal calls it "a major breakthrough for local advertisers" thanks to Google's geotargeting system. (Creepy $100-budget ads aren't just for 3 AM any more.)
- Inside Google blogger Nathan Weinberg says, "If Google were to give a way to get only video ads, I'd be there in a second." He figures, people love videos, and they will click ads with a pretty Google-Video-esque button.
- Darren Rowse at ProBlogger just reports the facts. Given the liberal sprinkling of ads on Rowse's site, he'll embed video ads at the first chance he gets.
