"News is breaking today that 10 months after the search mogul paid a whopping $1.65bn for the world's premier video sharing website that it is about to turn it into a money making cash cow.

From early next year it has been confirmed that all YouTube clips will feature targeted advertising inside them of 10 to 15 seconds long. The adverts themselves will be chosen using the keywords attached to the videos themselves and run in translucent form in the bottom fifth of the screen.

YouTube didn't elaborate on how it would handle advertising for clips of 15 seconds or less.

Interestingly/frustratingly Google currently has no plans to introduce a subscription option for heavy YouTube users either which would let them bypass the new advertising.

How YouTube's 72m+ users react to this disappointing (if perhaps realistic) news when combined with the impending auto-blocking of copyright content will be in itself worth watching. So do you think YouTube rivals will attempt to a) exploit the revised service by promoting ad-free content or b) simply be encouraged to follow its lead?

I'd suggest: a) quickly followed by b)..."

SOURCE

It helps if you get your news stories from "real" sources and that aren't a few days old. From PC World:

Quote:

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Only videos from content creators that have signed up for the advertising scheme, called InVideo, will host ads, leaving the majority of videos on YouTube free of the overlays, a Google spokesman said Friday. Advertisers will still be able to reach a large audience through YouTube videos even if the company only places ads in a small portion of videos.

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I must admit, I was surprised that youtube would choose to slit its throat so completely... but PC World didn't exactly paint the full picture either I'd say.

"Initially, YouTube is only placing ads on content from select partners, and stated it has no plans to place advertising on user-generated clips at the moment."

This is the real point. Yeah okay it won't be on every video right now but do you trust them to stick to that in the future? Once they've estblished the principle of sticking adverts in the middle of their videos then what?

The golden age of youtube is over. They're clamping down on the copyrighted content and trying to make money from what's left. Had to happen but it's still a pity.

SOURCE