The Internet is said to be fueled by ads. You either pay with your money or with your personal data. When you pay with your data – the end result is targeted ads coming back at you. Or so people say.
When I recently posted about why Google is promoting WebRTC, there were those who went to the knee-jerk answer of ads. While this may, and probably is, true – the discussion that continued over this on the Facebook WebRTC Forum page focused on placing ads on top of video calls. If you ask me – that's a big no-no.
Open up your beloved VoIP app on your phone. I'll wait. Is it Skype? Tango? ooVoo? FaceTime? Something else? Good. Now start a video call. Notice anything? Do you see the face of the person you called or is there also an ad on that screen? No ad? Then why would you be willing to see ads in your next service?
Ads don't work on video calls. At least not straightforward ones.
There are essentially four ways to place ads on video calls:
- Pre-roll, where the ad is displayed before you get the call connected. This can work well for contact centers or Web conference calls. The promotions shown can meet the profile of the caller, the subject of the call (if it is known), the pages surfed prior to the call, etc. Most likely, these will be promotions related to the actual call about to be connected.
- Post-roll, where the ad is displayed once the call disconnects. It has less value as the person is less likely to stay around for it.
- Mid-roll, where the ad is displayed when the person is placed on-hold. Again – works well for contact centers, but probably nowhere else.
- In-context, where the ad relates to the actual discussion in the call. Never really worked. The closest solution? The "upcoming" MindMeld app. Upcoming, because that's the state for quite some time now. Here, ads/information are displayed dynamically, depending on the call's content.
Video calling doesn't lend itself well to ad monetization. Companies that tried it directly usually failed. Those that succeeded did so by other means – installing a toolbar on the browser with the app and monetizing it, showing ads on the buddy list, etc.
Google isn't pushing WebRTC to add ads on top of it in its Hangout service. They could have done that with or without WebRTC. There's a deeper need here – the shift of dominance – from the operating system to the Web browser.
Sure – ads will be there in WebRTC – this is how the Web works. Finding the correct balance between the video service and its monetization is not going to be trivial.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey
