Ever since Google added Adsense advertising to its stable of online offerings, both web publishers and the company itself have rejoiced over the
. But many have wondered why Google has failed to offer advertising solutions for video.
Now the company has done just that. According to an announcement from Google, it has officially opened its Adsense service to YouTube video publishers. In the process, it has become the first large-scale provider of advertising for online footage.
The feature allows users to embed advertisements directly into video, or overlay text ads that change based on content and its surroundings. In-video ads are paid out based on page views, while text ads are based on the number of actual clicks.
If you're small, think again
So far the current Adsense for video plan is only available for large publishers. Google says the service is in beta; releasing it to every publisher would hinder the process of ironing out all the kinks. As it stands, only US-based publishers with over 1 million streams per month are allowed to sign up.
Google did not indicate when the Adsense for video program would be made available to smaller and non-US publishers. But it did say that it will open the service up in the future.