Google has begun recouping its $1.6 billion purchase of YouTube 2 cents at a time.
Google is selling overlay advertising on a limited number of YouTube videos to a select group of partners at a cost of $20 per 1,000 viewers. Initial advertisers include BMW, Ford Models, and Warner Music Group.
The overlay ads appear 15 seconds into certain YouTube videos in a strip on the bottom fifth of the image frame, unless ad-blocking software is active. They last for 15 to 20 seconds.
Clicking on the overlay pauses video playback and opens a new Flash window atop the video window to play an expanded interactive video ad. The initial overlays and click-through windows can be removed by clicking a close button in the upper right-hand corner of the graphic.
The Warner Music Group ad, for example, opens a Flash-based album browser that lets the viewer scroll through albums by Warner artists. Clicking on a given album will open a new browser window with additional information about the album and artist, provided pop-up b
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