Yesterday we reported the news that Google plans to begin running ads on YouTube. And we also asked the question: Are the tens of millions of YouTube visitors going to mind?

Today, the answers begin rolling in. From the Hollywood Reporter:

Despite Google’s attempt to present advertising in the most unobtrusive way, many users reacted with concern on YouTube’s official blog post.

“I’m unsubscribing from anyone who has ads in their videos, and if everyone has ads, then I’ll just find a site that doesn’t,” one post read.

Others, however, praised the strategy and wrote that as long as the content owners and the viewers had a choice about the ads it wouldn’t mean the end of the site. Some also realized that YouTube, bought last year by Google for $1.65 billion, is a company that needs to make money, and this might be the best option available.

“YouTube and Google need to get some ROI or else all of this goes away,” a Wednesday morning commenter wrote. “Let me say thanks to you, Goog, for the work, dedication and the imagination that viral video can make the world a better place.”

Google is confident that overlay is its best option on YouTube. The company found that 50%-70% of viewers tested would turn off a video if there was a preroll, and the amount of users clicking on overlay ads was five to 10 times greater than the rate for banners.

The spokesman, however, did not have the number for the percentage of testers that clicked on the overlay ads. He also said that he did not have a sense of what percentage of users were turned off by overlay and closed the video once that type of ad started.

On that note, we’ll step away from this topic for a while and see how the situation plays out.

(Read the whole Hollywood Reporter article here.)

Barely a week after announcing the discontinuation of Google Video — in part because of its struggles with how to incorporate advertising into the videos — Google has announced that it will introduce an advertising feature to YouTube, the wildly popular video networking site that it acquired in 2006.

YouTube is an absolute phenomenon. It’s where teenagers post their own video diaries; it’s where struggling actors share audition tapes with the world (with varying degrees of success). It’s the place where you can go to see old, forgotten TV shows, and it was the source of questions for a recent Democratic party presidential debate. In just a few years its grown from a start-up to a worldwide sensation.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings (by way of the New York Times), YouTube had 51 million visitors in June, and “now attracts an audience that is larger than the combined audiences of its three nearest competitors, MySpace, AOL and Yahoo.”

Furthermore,

Its adoption of overlay ads for online video could turn the format into an industry standard, advertising executives said. The video ad market, which is expected to nearly double from last year to $775 million, has been projected to grow to $4.3 billion by 2011, according to eMarketer, a research firm.

So why would Google risk tampering with such a hugely successful site? There’s your answer. If indeed visitors don’t mind a few ads, then Google has nothing to lose, and everything to gain: The site has so much traffic that ad space is guaranteed to be premium.

However, visitors to YouTube may in fact have a problem with such ads. In that case, what’s to stop another video-sharing site, such as VideoEgg, from stealing some of those visitors?

It’s impossible to answer the question at this point. However, it should be noted that Google has a history of defying such odds.

At any rate, the roll-out of this new advertising will be designed to be minimally intrusive. Again, from the New York Times:

The company said late Tuesday that after months of testing various video advertising models, it was ready to introduce a new type of video ad, which it said was unobtrusive and kept users in control of what they saw.

The ads, which appear 15 seconds after a user begins watching a video clip, take the form of an overlay on the bottom fifth of the screen, not unlike the tickers that display headlines during television news programs.

A user can ignore the overlay, which will disappear after about 10 seconds, or close it. But if the user clicks on it, the video they were watching will stop and a video ad will begin playing. Once the ad is over, or if a user clicks on a box to close it, the original video will resume playing from the point where it was stopped.

“What we have come up with is a user-controlled ad format that is engaging,” said Eileen Naughton, Google’s director for media platforms. “We want our users to be able to accept and choose what type of advertising they engage in.”

For now, Google will place the ads only on video clips of its content partners — the more than 1,000 small and large media companies that have licensed their videos to YouTube. By doing so, YouTube will avoid the potential liability of having ads appear on copyrighted clips it is not authorized to display. And it will also prevent ads from playing on clips generated by users whose message may not be to the liking of advertisers.

The revenue from the ads will be split between the media partner and YouTube. Ms. Naughton said Google would charge advertisers $20 for every 1,000 times the ads were displayed. Google said the ads would begin appearing today throughout the site. Ms. Naughton also said advertisers would be able to take aim at specific channels and genres, as well as demographic profiles, geography and hour of the day.

If successful, the video ads could persuade more media companies to license their content to YouTube as a way to make money from it, analysts said.

“Today, YouTube is a sunk cost for Google,” said Darren Aftahi, a securities analyst with ThinkEquity Partners. “If they can couple the proper advertising with the proper content, there is a tremendous opportunity for the company.”

Read the original New York Times coverage here. And let us know what you think in the comments section, below.

Today we bring you exciting news from the web hosting industry! Hot on the heels of recent web hosting industry merger news, executives with Aplus.Net today announced that the company has acquired WebImage, a website development and Internet marketing company based in White Plains, New York.

From the official Aplus.Net press release:

With a business model focused on premium Internet presence solutions for small businesses, WebImage is best known for its highly streamlined approach to volume web design. In addition, WebImage positions itself as a business partner for small-to-medium-sized businesses seeking a single business partner to provide an Internet presence solution complete with design, hosting and marketing services.

“We firmly believe that the remaining 40 percent of small businesses that have yet to establish an Internet presence are unlikely to rely on do-it-yourself web design solutions,” said Gabriel Murphy, Aplus.Net’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Instead, they will demand a complete Internet solution with web design, hosting and marketing services fully integrated into one package. The acquisition of WebImage offers a significant component to our focus on providing a fully integrated Internet presence solution to small businesses. WebImage’s reputation for providing high-quality web design services based on a streamlined, efficient process was very attractive to us. The company is far ahead of other bulk web design firms in terms of their value proposition, quality of design and process efficiency.”

Aplus.Net will soon offer more details about this merger, and its specific plans to integrate the WebImage brand into Aplus.Net’s product suite. Stay tuned to the Aplus.Net blog! You’ll hear it here first.

If your company is still a start-up, market research may not be something you’ve put a lot of thought into just yet. You’ve probably had your hands full with the basics of just getting your company up and running. That’s understandable.

However, if you want your company to thrive in the long-term, it’s definitely in your best interest to get acquainted with the concept of market research.

The simple definition for market research is: Know your customer. That’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, but don’t let that fool you. It’s an important concept, especially in the Internet age. After all, the better you understand your customer, the more likely you’ll be to increase your sales.

To this end, we’ve noticed a recent article in BNET that helps shed a lot of light on market research, what it can do you for you, and just how to go about harnessing it for your company. It’s a great summary of some quick and easy ways to get started on the path to expanding your customer base, and securing a better place for yourself in today’s competitive marketplace in the process.

Check out the original article here.

From the Reuters newswire: “CIA, FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits”

In and of itself, Wikipedia can be a fairly controversial topic of conversation. Although it contains an almost inexhaustible amount of data on almost every conceivable topic, we’re constantly warned that it’s not an academically viable source of information. Perhaps for good reason: The very guidelines that allow the site to contain such a wide range of information (i.e., open editing by anyone who feels like putting in the time), also dictate that there will occasionally and inevitably be some factual errors.

That caveat aside, however, Wikipedia has proved itself to be, for the most part, a reliable source of information. Mistakes, whether deliberate or accidental, are usually eliminated within hours of publication. And the fact that it’s shot to the top of Google rankings for many of its topics proves that it’s a hit with many, many people.

Now, however, new controversy has arisen with the revelation that some rather distinguished parties have taken interest in just what Wikipedia is telling the world. From the Reuters article:

People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program.

The changes may violate Wikipedia’s conflict-of-interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said on Thursday.

Read the article here, and let us know what you think in the comments.