We’ve all been hearing lately about startups failing to deliver a profitable distribution model for content creators. Now – thank you Ad Lab – we’re seeing smarter technologies emerging to tackle the apparently tricky online video distribution dilemma.
Contextual Ads for Video. Through speech recognition, this technology enables ads to be dynamically served based on the content discussed in the video.
I’m really impressed by the way that Microsoft is handling online video. First, this really smart and simple advertising solution will most probably have more effect than a clickable branded banner.
Plus Microsoft is developing its Smart Trailers technology, a great feature that analyzes a movie file and spits a trailer out. While Google complains that it’s losing money on Myspace with their text ads – whereas Ford is satisfied enough with the even lamer Myspace video show Roommates to sponsor the second season – Microsoft has bet on video as the next best thing on the Web and this strategy is starting to show amazingly coherent results.
With or without Yahoo!, Microsoft is definitely shaking the ladder on top of which Google is starting to slip gently back down.