YouTube has done quite a lot at putting up every feature it offers on the web page on the mobile devices as well; something that has marked a rapid growth taking the number of videos watched per month to over a million.
Another key feature that has been up and running on user’s mobile devices while they watch videos are the advertisements on select pages, though they are presently focused in the U.S and Japan. The purpose of it being to test mobile advertising for YouTube; which of course points at its plans at monetizing for YouTube does everything but generate money from the millions of videos users watch every month. The step gives YouTube a chance to mint some cash by displaying these ads and the advertisers having yet another tool to market their product.
Christine Tsai writes at Google’s blog:
At YouTube, we are constantly testing new ways to deliver the kinds of ads that contribute to the user experience while making the most sense for advertisers, and we’ve learned a lot about what works for YouTube and what doesn’t.
Well something’s got to work for them, as YouTube hasn’t really hit hard at taking advantage of such a gargantuan user base, generating revenue from hardly 3% of its videos. The basic idea as mentioned would be to put up ads that are appealing and more importantly don’t irritate the user, plus the idea can be successful only if they know how, where and when to put these ads. And it appears that the team is up to work out the idea over the next few weeks and come up with something useful, providing both user and advertisers with an effective mobile experience that maintains the originality of YouTube and is valuable.
However the idea of using advertising to provide an enhanced user experience sounds quite amusing in my personal opinion. I would never want an ad to pop up as I watch my favorite video at YouTube, forget what ad it is, be it ‘how to become a superman’ or ‘how to build an empire’; all it does make me think is that it will make it all too untidy. Ads do somehow enhance user experience but that would do for Google Search or even Gmail, but if it has to come to YouTube, it has to come at the right place and at the right time when a video is watched, otherwise all it will end up doing is irritating the user.
