The future of video advertising and search on the Net?
Imagine this. You’re watching a Pop!Tech video, like we are right now (we’re watching Ask a Ninja’s Kent Nichols talk to the crowd about podcasting and how Ask a Ninja came about). But, instead of doing advertising at the beginning of the video (like Pop!Tech has thanks to a sponsorship) there’s a set of Google ads along the side.
But, as you watch the video the Google ads change. And don’t change randomly, but change in reaction to what Kent is talking on stage about. He says “camcorder” and the ads change to a set of camcorders that you could buy — all without interrupting the video playing.
Anyway, this future is really much closer to happening thanks to Nexidia. Drew Lanham, Senior Vice President came out and demoed Nexidia’s system for me recently.
This technology also enables video search. In the demo Drew shows off a TV station, Channel 11 Alive, where you can search the video.
Here’s an interview with further info about how the system works and what else it could be used for.

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April 12th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
This may be a step in the right direction, or it may not. What it feels like is yet another way to push more “contextual” ads in my face when I have zero interest in the subject being discussed.
I know this is must be rocket science, but if I have to watch an ad to support a free video, can I not tell the site what types of ads I want to see? Why must advertising forever be about guessing what people MIGHT want to watch? Aren’t we beyond that in this permission-based era?
April 12th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Justin: I think there’ll be a lot of experimentation in video.
Mostly this technology is really about search. It’s just that that enables a new kind of advertising that’ll pop up along the video.
And, many videos you watch will be able to accurately predict the kinds of things you might be interested in buying.
A parenting video? Diapers, cameras, baby food, cribs, child safety seats, etc.
A Ruby on Rails video? Computers, hard drives, development tools like Adobe’s CS3 suite, etc.
April 12th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Truly extraordinary - and I love the low-key way Drew presents it. His zero-hype pitch style makes it even more remarkable.
April 12th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
This phonetic pattern search approach looks really promising, the index speed is extraordinary and it looks like Nexidia knows where their added value is: content. It is multilingual - due to the phoneme analysis - so this can have huge impact.
April 12th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Busqueda contextual de fonemas: el futuro de la publicidad
Nexidia es una compañía que se dedica a la búsqueda de patrones fonéticos en contenido. En este artículo Scoble presenta un demo de la tecnología de búsqueda y la aplicación de la búsqueda contextual para la generación de anuncios publicitari…
April 12th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
My question is who looks at these ads. I’ve never clicked a Google ad in my life. I don’t even glance at them. They don’t register in my field of view. Most seem pretty silly. Just because he’s talking about camcorders doesn’t mean I want to buy one.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Sounds great in theory, but ask any ad agency and they’ll laugh at the idea. People don’t click on ads during videos… period.
Think about it - if you click the link, the video stops playing. And your eyes aren’t over there anyway.
Video ads in videos (before or after content) create a captive audience. Text ads can never compete with that.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
#7: the video doesn’t need to stop when you click something. Ever hear of AJAX?
April 12th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
This isn’t technology, this is just how powerful I am as a speaker. :P
April 13th, 2007 at 7:26 am
[...] Contextual ads appearing inside your YouTube videos? Robert Scoble talks about how it’s already in progress. [...]
April 13th, 2007 at 8:13 am
[...] Scoble has a video interview with Drew Lanham, Senior Vice President for Nexidia, a company that can match contextual ads, such as AdWords, with [...]
April 13th, 2007 at 9:46 am
This is inevitable and great idea! I had a similar idea but its way down the line and purely conceptual right now:
http://iancamarillo3.blogspot.com/2007/03/product-picker-by-ian.html
April 13th, 2007 at 11:03 am
[...] Robert Scoble takes a look at what he sees as what very well could be the future of video advertising. [...]
April 13th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
More effective video advertising is essential to the production and distribution of original content. From Hollywood to the basements of the nation, everyone will benifit from technology like this.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
What worries me about this is the homeland security aspects that he was talking about.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
[...] Sehen so die künftigen Werbeformen für Web-Videos aus, nach denen YouTube und Co. suchen? Nexidia hat sich auf die Spracherkennung von Audio- und Videofiles spezialisiert und ein Test-System aufgesetzt, bei dem das gesprochene Wort in Videos ausgewertet und parallel dazu passende - wohlgemerkt neben dem Video - beispielsweise Google Anzeigen veröffentlicht werden können. Die Vorstellungskraft eines Jeden reicht vermutlich aus, dass man sich so oder so ähnlich Werbung für Videoinhalte im Netz vorstellen könnte. Vermutlich kann ein dann noch besseres System automatisch das Videobild teilen und im Split-Screen passende Videowerbung einblenden. via Scobleizer [...]
April 14th, 2007 at 5:53 am
[...] content the market is still wide open. Companies like Nexidia and its phonetic based search for video advertising and search, technologies for image recognition like Google’s Neven Vision, Microsoft’s gender [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:40 am
[...] Future of video advertising? Do you really think so Scoble? Can this be the future of advertising online? Robert thinks so. [...]
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:21 pm
[...] Robert Scoble recently covered how Nexidia is using phonetic search to index video and audio content which then can be searched. And not only that, but by having a textual representation of the content along with some indexing information (such as the position of a certain phrase within a video), they can seamlessly integrate Google AdWords into a viewer and present relevant ads based on the what’s currently being played or listened to. [...]
April 25th, 2007 at 7:14 am
[...] using SR technology to pick up keywords in an audio stream. See Robert Scoble’s demo of Nexidia or this post by Eduardo Olvera. The basic idea has been around for years, especially if you believe [...]