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Why Online Video Ads Still Don’t Work

by Peter Kafka
Posted on May 15, 2009 at 2:12 PM PT

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branded-content-videoFrom the funny-and-true! department: A biting clip from the dudes at College Humor satirizing the lousy ad options and mind-numbing ad jargon that dominate the online video business.

And a good reminder that even though Google’s (GOOG) YouTube generates more than five billion streams a month and Hulu has grown 490 percent in the last year, no one has really figured out a good way to turn all those eyeballs into dollars. Yet.

A short cheat sheet: The guys on the left side of the table are College Humor co-founders Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen, who sold their company to IAC (IACI) in 2006, yet remain employed by Barry Diller. They’re also pretty sharp business guys, it turns out. The guys on the right side are Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld, College Humor employees who have had a long-running series of clips on the site. Dina Kaplan, who gets name-checked several times, is COO of New York-based video site Blip.tv, which happens to be the distributor of this clip.

Print Post to Twitter Comments Tagged: Google, Internet, Peter Kafka, advertising, digital, entertainment, media, video, , , , , , , , , , , , , , | permalink
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  • Hey Peter when will we see YOU going sooo viral... branded... widget?
  • Outstanding clip. See I would consider buying an item advertised it the ad was as funny as that . . .
  • Okay so snickering while consuming morning coffee = bad idea.
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About Peter

Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »

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