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YouTube Ready to Make Money

According to a recent patent filing, it may get easier for the masses to create advertisements for YouTube. The patent, released January 14th 2010, is for a Video Overlay Advertisement Creator. Overlay ads are the text ads that appear in the lower quarter of a video and can be accompanied by an image: Looking at the details in the patent image, you can see that YouTube is taking the overlay ad to a new, more customizable level:

(click to enlarge)

Some of the customizable features present in the patent:
  • Ability to upload and place an image to the left or right
  • Ability to change text and background color
  • Two ad segments with different text & ability to change image
  • Multiple click actions
    • Play a video ad (by YouTube id) then link to site
    • Link to site w/ no video ad
  • Choose different overlay entrance styles
    • Slide and Wipe
    • Elastic
    • Pop from Center
  • Test your ad against a variety of background videos
I think we can all agree that this will make overlay ad creation easier and more accessible. Combine this ad generator with Google's Video Targeting Tool and you now have a way to place your overlay ad on videos based on keywords (like politics or fashion), viewer demographics (like age and gender), interest-based categories, or some combination of the three. AWESOME ! The only thing not discussed in the patent is the bidding system for these overlay ads. Will these overlays be CPC or CPM based ? What if multiple advertisers want to advertise on the same video ? If anyone has any insight on this, please chime in on the comment board.