aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Saturday, December 09, 2006

RIP: Pre-roll ads

Without Fred’s pedigree, I’ve been pleading in the blog wilderness for online video services to use only click-to-play ads, and banish forever pre-roll ads. Today Fred predicts it:

Pre-roll ads are going the way of popups and other intrusive ads. They won’t be around in a couple years. And the online video services that use them to monetize their audience won’t be around either.

Because the thing you have to understand about digital media is its pervasive and abundant. There is always somewhere else to get the same thing. Digital is write once, read everywhere. Digital media is like a virus. It spreads like crazy.

So if you want to build a business around digital media, you have to be the best place to view/consume the media. Being the only place to see it is a naive strategy that won’t work. You have to make digital media easy to find, easy to watch/listen/view, easy to comment/tag/share, and easy to replicate/reblog/republish.

That’s the way two way media works. If you don’t understand/accept that, get out of the business because you’ll be out of it sooner or later.

He’s ok with post-rolls. Me too. He says mid-rolls may have a chance. I hope not. More from Online Media Daily.

LATER: Fred’s no more optimistic about the network TV collaboration to come up with a YouTube rival.