The (Imbecilic) Shakeup Among Veterans of Web Video Ads

Trawling my selection of news feeds this morning, I came across several rather amusing bits on a spat (well, maybe not a spat, but I’ll put the word to use here anyhow) being had between VideoEgg and YouTube, in which the former is more or less accusing the latter of stealing its overlaid-ad thunder. (Yesterday, Google-YouTube officially debuted its new in-video ad delivery system.)

The latter’s response, well, actually there’s been no response, from what I gather. And I can’t forget to relay some info from the head honcho at TechCrunch, where he mentions a couple of notices received from AdBrite and Brightcove, which both claim to have begun doing what YouTube’s now doing many months ago.

To all of which I myself respond with: Who gives a (bleep)? It’s one thing to call dibs on something worthwhile, meaningful, something that people actually enjoy. Like who offers the best video quality (definitely not YouTube) in the biz. Or who has the best UI. People don’t enjoy advertisements. They tolerate them. So all the huffing and puffing over the way ads are delivered to Web video viewers? Why? What for?

Fools. Fools, I say.

Bravo to Brightcove for being “well ahead of the market,” introducing video overlay ads way back in autumn of 2005. Bravo. Aces. A round of applause, please, everybody.

And AdBrite. They’ve spent a year working the overlay angle. Way ahead of Larry and Sergey. Props to ‘em for that.

VideoEgg’s been doing the same for about a year as well. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

Seriously, this talk about who was first out of the gate is just pathetic. (By the way, if you’re interested in knowing the true origin of overlay ads, the Om in GigaOM has two words for you: broadcast television.) The only benefit to the dispute for us sideliners is to see geeks fight, and personally, that doesn’t sound all that appealing, considering the improbability that fists will ever be raised, so I think I’ll call it for what it is: pointless nonsense.

To the CEOs making noise on the matter, I’ve a simple request. Argue over something us consumers of your content actually care about. You know quite well we would like very much to see the fewest advertisements possible. We hate ‘em. You probably do too, even though you’re required to use them to keep your businesses running. The fact that you’re arguing over who among you first brought “overlaid” ads out for public consumption makes you come off badly. Stupid, even. So stop. It makes us like you less, and some of you could use as much liking as you can get.