YouTube's new ad strategy is bound to upset users - Hypertext
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Peak Points place adverts at the point where users are most engaged in a YouTube video.

This week YouTube hosted Brandcast 2025 in which it revealed how marketers could make better use of the platform to connect with customers.

A few new so-called innovations were announced at the event but one has caught the attention of the internet – Peak Points. This new product makes use of Gemini to detect “the most meaningful, or ‘peak’, moments within YouTube’s popular content to place your brand where audiences are the most engaged”.

Essentially, YouTube will use Gemini and probably the heatmap generated on YouTube videos by people skipping to popular points, to determine where to place advertising. Anybody who has grown up watching terrestrial television where adverts arrive as a way to build suspense will understand how annoying Peak Points could become.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
    6·
    2 days ago

    Oh, it’s extraordinarily expensive, and what people really underestimate is how HUGE Google’s storage requirements actually are.

    Thing is, it’s also a ton of money. Youtube isn’t just ad-driven video streaming, it’s also a Spotify competitor, a Twitch competitor, a video subscription service (and for some reason they still have a movie and show rental thing in there). 10% of all of Alphabet’s money is a LOT of money, and this isn’t the only business of theirs that demands insane storage requirements.

    I’m sure they’ll tighten requirements eventually, and they’ve already done a ton of throttling, but they, again, own Internet video.

    Let me put it this way, I think if Google decided to offer Youtube to either of us for a dollar on the condition we can’t resell it to anybody and we have to keep running it forever we’d both still take it.

    • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      its also why they allow more right wing content on the site too, conservatives love outrage and youtube provides now

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      Let me put it this way, I think if Google decided to offer Youtube to either of us for a dollar on the condition we can’t resell it to anybody and we have to keep running it forever we’d both still take it.

      I’m not sure about that. what would I do? manipulate elections? manipulate public opinion? I’m not an advertising company to be able to do that

      • Cenzorrll@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        20 hours ago

        If you give me all of YouTube and that includes everyone maintaining it, all the data collection processes from it, and the infrastructure to keep it running. Hell yeah I’ll take it, the data collection alone on users is an information gold mine and companies all over would be salivating to get a piece of that. I can pretty much guarantee that if given the threat of losing the data of everyone in the worlds video watching habits vs paying more to upkeep it, companies will start paying more.

        In all actuality, I’d still do it and toss out the data collection. I don’t see anywhere in this mental exercise that I have to keep it running well. Y’all (well, about 5 of y’all at a time) are watching 36p videos from here on out.