Video ads, or rich media ads have been a bone of contention among conventional web publishers for years, but as broadband penetration continues to improve, and browser/pc capability follows, it was only ever a matter of time before someone tried to jump onto the blog bandwagon with video ads.
As you can see from the pic on the right, they’re kind of attractive looking, or at least I think so, but the real question is, would you show these ads on your blog?
Steve, who pointed me at the press release from Vive Networks about the launch says he doubts bloggers will want to show such obnoxious ads on their websites, and mostly I agree. It does depend on the type of blog though, and for product bloggers, if not with Vive, who look very much like they’re hoping like hell to make a big enough splash to attract some advertisers! then with some ad network video ads may be a good thing.
They apparently pay on a CPM or CPC basis, the choice being yours, but there are a few things that worry me deeply about this announcement.
- They appear to be striking a network play, with no publishers, and no advertisers – a recipe for disaster, though i could be wrong on that. It’s just that as Steve pointed out there is no list of current advertisers.
- They only intend to pay up to 60% rev share
- Following that statement they continue with: “Our Content Publisher team determines the payment level for your blogsite when you apply to join our network” Eeek! Wrong answer!
Their sample ad formats ARE attractive though, and i’ve no wish to see them fail (yet) so whether they’re hopeful vapourware or the next big thing, good luck to them. At the very least it’ll be fun to see how this pans out, assuming of course they even get off the starting block.