YuMe Archive

Video advertising company YuMe has announced a new ad unit launch today. The new ad unit is called “Insynch” and the company calls it a takeover unit. Basically how it works is that it combines video ads and traditional online ads together on a page. If a video ad is on the left and a traditional ad on the right, YuMe can sync the two together and pass bits back and forth. In their demo, YuMe combines a video ad, a layer ad and a traditional banner ad together.

From the launch announcement, “How does the InSynch Video Takeover work?  While the in–stream video ad is playing, the entire page where the player resides turns into an advertising canvas where anything is possible.  For example, marketers can have objects jump out of the video ad and into a companion banner placement or have these elements fly across the web page, temporarily taking over the page and captivating the viewer’s attention. ”

It looks like a pretty interesting advertising unit as long as the actual synch always works perfectly. Check out the demo of the InSynch ad unit on YuMe’s site.

Last September, video ad provider YuMe Networks announced that they would be handling advertising for Microsoft’s Interactive TV. Today, both YuMe and Microsoft are making another announcement regarding a new partnership.  Beginning this summer, YuMe will provide video advertising network management capabilities and sales for unsold inventory on Microsoft’s online properties.

Basically YuMe becomes the default video advertising partner for Microsoft. This means that if Microsoft can’t fill an ad impression through their network, YuMe will handle the ad serving. No details were provided on the estimated number of ads nor the financial terms of this new relationship.

YuMe currently reports 46 million monthly unique visitors. Check out our review of YuMe Neworks from last year.

Yume is announcing this morning a new partnership with Google (GOOG) which will bring Google’s AdSense for video ad product to YuMe’s clients. The basic idea is to help increase ad fill rate and iin-turn increase monetization levels for video publishers.

This news comes at the same time that Google opens up AdSense for Video.

Jayant Kadambi, CEO of YuMe, "Being part of Google’s AdSense for video beta provides our publishers with a powerful new avenue for realizing the full revenue potential of their video inventory. We’re excited to be working with one of the true innovators in online advertising to leverage our ad management platform and newly launched Adaptive Campaign Engine capability."

YuMe claims to be the largest video advertising network in the world and so this deal is a smart distribution move for both YuMe and Google. Publishers can only hope to see a good revenue stream from Google but if it’s anything like the text ads, the numbers drop daily. Fill rates will certainly improve by allowing Google’s strength to push out ads.

Check out an example of how the Google ads will work – it’s the last video on the demo page and the video is pretty cute and worth a quick watch.

Microsoft will be announcing, here in NYC, the Beta trial of the new Windows Media Center Internet TV for Vista today. Using this feature, you can watch full-screen ad-supported on-demand video content on your PC and extend it to your TV using extender devices which are also launching today.

YuMe is also announcing they are the ad patner for the Internet TV Beta. Check out our YuMe review from this past summer. They currently serve over 100 million video ad impressions per month.

“It’s a tremendous honor for our young company to be chosen to deliver the advertising that will power this groundbreaking new feature from one of the world’s most innovative companies,” said Jayant Kadambi, CEO of YuMe. “We’re looking forward to working with advertisers and agencies, helping them to reach a new audience on a platform that can reach consumers on their television sets in the digital home.”

“We believe that advertising is a key aspect to bringing the greatest breadth and depth of content to the digital home,” said Dan Poling, Director of Advertising for Windows Media Center. “We’re pleased to be working with YuMe to introduce this ad supported video content to Windows Media Center users. YuMe offers a platform that can meet our ad serving, targeting, and inventory management requirements for the new Internet TV Beta.”

They have talked about new and innovative ad formats. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

It’s an overall trend for larger, established media companies to create niche, video social networks on the web in the past few weeks.  Their previous attempts to rival with the likes of MySpace and YouTube have failed miserably, and they’re beginning to realize that targeting a specialized demographic is a more effective way to build their online presence.  In some cases, these larger companies have taken the liberty of creating several niche social networks in an attempt to broaden their appeal.  This makes sense on many levels, and depending on the type of company, they could effectually bring in a new audience that may never have taken to online social networking otherwise.

Who’s Making These Niche Social Networks for Video?

Mostly long standing media companies looking to grow their online presence are creating these sites.  Hearst revealed their partnership with Maven to release their social networking components earlier this week, encouraging the uploading of video to twelve of their niche social networks, which correspond to several of Hearst’s existing magazine titles.

Super Deluxe, an online community devoted to comedy, original skits and user-submitted content, is a subsidiary of Time Warner.  Though Drew Reifenberger, SVP and General Manager of Super Deluxe, had long wanted Warner to create something along these lines, it wasn’t until recently, with the explosive growth of online communities, that they had been permitted to create such a network.  Time Warner has actually launched several niche communities online, including veryfunnyads and ACC Select, to cater to a wide range of demographics.

Why Are They Making These Social Networks?

The viral video has epitomized the culture of the Internet in the past year.  That being said, much of what was popular was also pirated.  The rightful owners of those John Stewart and Saturday Night Live clips had no choice but to notice the rise of YouTube and the importance of video virality.  So when it came down to these established media companies creating niche social networks, it seemed only proper to incorporate user-generated videos. 

The best thing about niche social networks is their targeted demographic.  In this manner, it is very easy to woo marketers.  It’s an irresistable catch for advertising campaigns when they have the exact audience they want, ready, willing and able.  Now that more resources are being put in place to involve video ads into user-submitted content, the streams of revenue are widening for the creators of these niche social networks. 

Who Benefits from Niche Video Social Networks?

The creators of the networks definitely benefit from their niche markets.  These media companies have downsized the risk involved with advertisers placing their commercials with user-generated material.  They know what kind of content they’re getting.  Hearst’s recent partnership with Maven to enable user-generated video content has allowed Hearst to market directly to their consumers.

The middlemen benefit as well.  YuMe officially launched this week as well, providing a centralizing factor for video-hosting sites and advertisers.  They effectively scan the video content and categorize it accordingly in order to match up the correct ads with the appropriate videos.  Now is a prime opportunity for them to grow their client base on both ends of the spectrum.

This article was written by Kristen Nicole, who writes for 606tech.com.