YouTube Shops Itself

Google's biggest problem, advertising wise, is that the very expensive YouTube, for which it paid $1.65 billion, does not pay off. Plain and simple, almost 70 percent of the people and companies that chose to advertise on the world's biggest video sharing service said that they were not happy about the response they got and deemed it to be not worth it.

The Mountain View-based company couldn't and wouldn't have that, so it stepped up and said "Wait a minute, I can change things, I have that kind of power." And so it did, it switched to overlay ads, also known as invideo ads. Being more user friendly than other formats and a lot less annoying than having the ads play before the actual start of the video, it caught on pretty big. The catch is that this option is available only for videos being created by partners, a very small percentage of the total number being available on YouTube.

However, the presence of these media companies and popular video creators being made partners debunks the general myth that YT is only about user-generated content. Jordan Hoffner, the head of Content Partnerships at the video company, uploaded a video of himself explaining that thousands of partners from all over the globe are already providing niche oriented videos and that every day that number increases.

Another video that is aimed at potential future partners is boasting with the huge opportunity provided by YouTube. "The YouTube community watches hundreds of millions of videos every day, more than any other TV network, cable network or social network combined. YouTube isn't just about media impressions, it's about the choices people make to be entertained, educated, inspired. It's about tiger vs bear. It's about sharing. Think of YouTube as the world's largest magazine rack. If it's of interest to somebody, it makes its way here."

I don't know about you, but to me it looks like this is an aggressive attempt to get a bigger share of the advertising pie. Is it their last resort?