AdBrite launches InVideo
I’ve been checking out this new video advertising service from Adbrite that Shoemoney blogged about last night. Basically it is a video hosting service that offers a customizable video player that you can brand with your own logo. The player also comes with non-intrusive ads; if the user hovers over a little text link in the top left corner there’s a small ad that drops down, split screen style, on top of the video.
There are a few things I reall like about the video player but there are also a few things I don’t like. Lets start with the good first.
Someone has finally introduced a way to monetize videos in a non-intrusive way that appears like it might actually work. I can’t say for sure because it’s still in beta, but I would like to test it sometime to see if it does in fact work. I also like that you can brand the videos with your own logo. Last but not least you can even earn revenue from your videos if other people embed them on their sites.
It seems a little odd that YouTube or one of the other video sharing sites was not first to come up with a way to monetize videos. Although now that Google owns YouTube I am expecting something pretty clever, and I’ve heard rumors from people who have tested some things they have in the works.
There are also sharing features that come with the video player to help spread your video. I left this out from the things I like because it leads right up to what I don’t like about the service. I don’t like that your videos aren’t being hosted on a social video site. Why? Because you are giving up the opportunity to get your video in front of millions of eyeballs and thus loosing a portion of your ability to spread the video. With YouTube you have an instant audience, which is one of the biggest reasons most videos go viral in the first place. Without the audience it will be hard for some videos to spread. Maybe AdBrite Video can work out a partnership with StumbleUpon’s new StumbleVideo service.
For bigger sites that already have large audiences this issue probably won’t be a problem. I’m thinking of sites like eBaumsWorld or CollegeHumor where something like this would probably be a perfect fit. In fact, I think what would really be cool is if AdBrite offered the ability for these sites to allow their users to upload videos right on the site.
Will this work? I’m not sure but I plan on watching it closely. If it does work it has the chance to be a step in the right direction for monetizing social media sites as a whole.