Written By Noah Mallin | October 16, 2008 | Share This |

three legs

This week Google announced that it was using its vaunted search algorithm to add targeted search ads on its YouTube property. This underlines the dual nature of the site as both a social media platform where users upload their own (and other people’s- naughty!) content but as a video search engine with more search traffic than Yahoo.

This also enters another chapter in the ongoing saga of “How Will We Monetize YouTube” in which the good Googlefolk try to figure out if this here YouTube cow they done bought will ever squirt milk (ie money in this labored barnyard analogy).

There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to video search and Google. As always the bottom line for the Googleverse is the data. The first step is simply doing what they are now, applying what already works on their own search pages to the YouTube platform. The results are tied to the search query of course and not to the actual results that come up “organically.” In Google this isn’t a big factor because the algorithm is designed (so we are told) for maximum relevance.

On YouTube though the search queries tend to be different and the “organic “results are more dependent on user-generated signposts like tags. What if this weren’t the case though? Take a look at this interviews from July with Google’s R.J. Pittman where he extols the virtues of image search and facial recognition (already on Picasa) technology.

Now imagine Google perfecting the ability to recognize objects, celebrities, and even actions without a user generated tag to prompt them. They already have a limited audio recognition program on YouTube based on the Presidential Election. Voila, the thirds leg of targeting emerges! Now they can get even more relevant and tie ad relevance to video content as well as search content – or even give the advertiser a choice. As universal search becomes more prevalent, the ability to have an ad show in tandem with a particular video every time it comes up shoudl be an interesting twist on the Google search triangle.

Topics: Advertising: Contextual, Advertising: Online, Google |