Even as YouTube finds itself embroiled in copyright controversy, corporate parent Google is expanding its video AdSense relationships to include The Wall Street Journal, Conde Nast and Sony BMG among others. Short videos from those content companies are now appearing alongside relevant content on sites that sport AdSense. A video ad often follows.
You can find an example video on this StreetInsider.com page, which showed (to me at least) a Dow Jones video about wine selection. The video wasn’t post-rolled with an ad, however. The video links back to the Google Video site (where you can grab the embed code), and you also have an option to e-mail the video to a friend.
My only complaint: The video’s length in seconds or minutes needs to be displayed at all times. The ad, even though it’s technically appropriate to the content of the page, is still an interruption of my scheduled visit to that page. I need to know how long the video will take.
Google is also reportedly beginning to integrate video results into its main search results pages. The integration of those videos is sure to set off some alarms for content companies that were already disgruntled about Google integrating YouTube videos into Google Video.