Google All Up In your Video

Google has gone a step further in it "unobtrusive" ad mongering by adding the ability to tag relevant videos from their recent acquisition: YouTube with ads. The term relevant is suspect here, as well as the supposed promise of not interfering with the viewer experience of the videos. I've posted a small google adsense feeder at the bottom left hand side of this blog to test out the code and see what happens.
 From the very beginning of the experiment, i can already see that the system isn't really set up for a blog like this. For some reason, there isn't a lot of advertisers lining up to buy keywords such as "media advocacy", "media reform", "protest", "indi-media", "media- studies" or any other key word i could think of to describe this site. What i was able to make work as a keyword was "documentary" and "media". Thus the videos found in the before mentioned box are filled with "relevant" videos and accompanying ads.
 As the ads/videos change all the time, studying it is kind of like trying to catch fish with your  bare hands. But i did find some interesting gems so far.

First up was this one. The "documentary" or interview was of an ex leader of the republican party in Boston during the 1960's. He is unnamed, but talks about the degradation or society and misuse of government funds during that time by the left to help destabilize the black community in his district.
 He also goes on to explain how there have always been only three political parties, one that follows the sovereignty of god, one that follows the sovereignty of man, and then every other party that follows the sovereignty of state.
 Now I'm not going to get into an analysis of this mans view points, or ideas of history, but what i will point out i the ads that have been placed over the video. Not only can you click on an ad to apply for government grants yourself, so that you can destabilize your own community of choice in the name of radical left wingism (my word), but you can also find out about the cult of the presidency... Helpful. Who knew?

 Another ad blunder i found was this one, where a news piece  from NTDTV on the pressure being put on Communist China by the world regarding their civil rights abuses is highlighted by an ad for a civil right lawyer, in NYC( fitting) and an add to help sell your mineral rights. I assume this is an offer to sell your mineral rights to a fair, non exploitative government somewhere.
The last one that i took a look at was another news piece from a different new outlet, Channels News, which after a bit of digging looks like it fed to Youtube by Media Scrape here is ablurb from their site.  
"Media Scrape is a world leading broadcaster of global, multi-lingual breaking news video.  Our partners include BBC News; CBC News; Asia News International and thirty other leading news broadcasters around the world"

This video was on TB and Aids issues in Nigeria, tagged with ads for a social networking site and survey for people with HIV, and one for a snakeoil ad to clean out parasites and worms out of the body. (yuck)
 Years ago i worked for an agency called Network News Service that was part owned by CBS, NBC, and FOX. From what i could tell, the company was provided an easy way for all the networks to help feed the beast 24hours a day with local news fare. (It provided me with an easy way to rail against big media and deelop a loathing for local news). Most of the stories were sensationalism spots like plane crashes, shootings, missing child spots, the occasional VNR (click on the link, it's scary) and other useless bits of information and fear mongering. Media scrape seems to be doing the same thing on a more global scale.

   Now here is the problem that i see with this. First, large media conglomerates are posting "documentary" tagged news pieces on a site that is supposed to be this new hope for democratic free media. At least the right wing propagandist is being clear about where the video is coming from. There is a website name at the end of the video.
  Second, people are probably not paying attention to where these videos are coming from, and perhaps forming opinions based off of heavily biased information. At least, Google thinks that they will form opinions, because they have monetized the videos with ad space, sold to advertisers who buy keywords such as HIV, Civil rights, or conspiracy. That's what allows the ads to pop up over the video.
  And third, bloggers like myself are being encouraged to make money at everyone's expense by placing these ads on their site in the hopes that whatever we are talking about in the blog will be relevant enough to the keywords we enter into the google adsense box, that it will bring eager eyes to the ads and compel you to click. Does this actually work? Well, i'll let you know if i make any money off of it, and if i do i'll donate it in your name to Democacy Now, or some other independent news outlet.
 Am i the only one who thinks this is just a real shitty situation? I would love to be able to live off of money generated by my site, but really...I'm not about to earn it that way. It seem a lot like being a pimp, without having the cool duds to go with the job.
 Anyway,  Be careful what you watch people, and dig in a bit to where things are coming from. Really, just stay off of Youtube, It will rot your brains. Don't fall for easy ads while browsing the Interwebs, people just want you to consume. If you really have that much money to spend, then donate to the management and maintainance of this site. I'll be putting up a paypal donation box for your donating pleasure.