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Video ads through Google 

Google has a free service called Google Video whereby anyone can upload video clips to Google's web servers and also make one’s own media available free of charge or Google Video Store. The users also have the option to search and play videos directly from Google Video and also download video files and remotely embed them on their webpages. This service of Google has many competitors too such as YouTube, iFilm, MetaCafe etc. 

click-to-play video ads compete in the same auction as text and image ads for placement on one’s site and consequently increased competition in the ad auction means increased revenue potential for the site owner. According to Google, these video ads expose one’s site to a novel method of advertising that is eye catching and highly relevant for the users. 

Similar to AdWords ad formats, video ads also compete for placement on sites in the Google content network with other text, flash and image ads and many media companies offer content on Google Video for purchase, including CBS programs, NBA, music videos, and independent films. Google Video is targeted towards offering a large archive of freely searchable videos. Besides amateur media, Internet videos, viral ads and movie trailers, the service also aims to distribute commercial professional media, such as televised content and movies.

Google has also now made a foray into the huge television advertising market with a service that places video commercials on the web sites where it sells advertising. Advertisers have always been keen to buy the relatively limited supply of spaces in online commercials and Google seeks to expand this online advertising space to the network it has established for text and graphical ads, a group of sites which are estimated to be in hundreds of thousands. 

Unlike video advertising networks that focus on inserting commercials into video programming, the video ads that Google places appear on conventional web pages. So the user will see a single image and the video will play only if they click a button. Though according to a media expert, major marketers would prefer their commercials to be part of regular programming on relevant or entertaining content rather than appear on web pages but according to Google this system would make video advertising accessible to small businesses. 

Google became a name to reckon with in advertising by selling short text advertising relevant to topics that people were researching or reading about on the web but it has also started but it has also started to eye the lucrative market of more elaborate advertisements that marketers who promote product brands would find more attractive. It recently started to allow advertisers to bid to place advertisements using graphics and animation on the sites that it represents which also have the option to reject the graphic advertisements or opt out of the video ads as well because they might be selling such ads themselves but according to Google most of the sites had agreed to display the video advertising. 

Some users have been under the impression that these video ads can slow down their site and that they have to pay for bandwidth but according to Google they would host the video, it would be user initiated, it would not slow down one’s site and one would not have to pay for the bandwidth. Google also seeks to ally fears that these ads are intrusive to users because if the video ad appears on one’s site, it would always show up as a static image until the user clicks on the play button. To ensure that all the ads are appropriate for family viewing, all the video ads are screened against video editorial guidelines that have been formulated by AdWords.