YouTube gives users templates to build animated overlays for video advertising

Democracy is a good thing ... just ask the folks at YouTube who say the video hub is working to make display advertising "accessible InVideo ad building tutorialand open" to the small businesses that use AdWords in their advertising mix. To that end YouTube announced the availability of a new product for media shops and advertisers with tight creative resources, an extension of its Display Ad Builder tool called InVideo, which allows users to build animated overlays that appear at the bottom of videos.

InVideo makes it simple for advertisers to build simple overlays for campaigns of any size. YouTube say the ad format--which has been used since 2007--is the most effective format on YouTube and can be bought on a cost-per-click basis or on a CPM basis. Either way, the ads can be placed according to demographics, content categories or even placed at a video-by-video level. The ads appear for several seconds part way through a video and fade away if they're not clicked on.

Google's move is an example of the patience the company has had with the property, building video views to more than a billion a day while allowing revenue stream to percolate quietly, with a variety of tools from pre- and post-roll ads to overlays and banners. At least one analyst, Mark Mahaney of Citigroup, forecasts YouTube will generate more than $1 billion in revenue for Google by 2011, with it coming in with revenues of $945 million this year.

For more:
- see this blog post
- watch this video
- see this article

Related articles:
YouTube-a billion dollar baby in 2011
YouTube birthday wishes; it continues to define the online video 
YouTube front page ads draw top dollar as the video hub drifts
Google CEO Schmidt says 2010 is year YouTube turns a profit 
Analyst: YouTube will be profitable in 2010