I don't know how this is possible, but the recent Indian summer is making me unreasonably depressed. Since when does good weather bring you down? The sunnier it becomes, the more I want to find my Cure albums and not leave my apartment. Luckily, these developments perked up my day, a little. ..No, not because I am a greedy capitalist who wants to monetize your grandma baking a cake. It's because technology thrills me, so there. And I truly believe that eventually all these developments will set in motion a giant leap in the way humanity interacts on a face to face level - for the better. Or, on the Debbie Downer side of the spectrum, it will increase the destructive pace of our planet so that I can go to my next life already. Either way, pretty good stuff. (Is that the sun depression talking? Get cold, damnit!) Watching from Various Places In The Corners Of My Eyes NewTeeVee Live Conference - (from their site) NewTeeVee Live will host more than 300 creators and enablers of the next generation of TV. From hot startups such as Joost and Jaman to well-established players such as Google and AOL, the event will bring together the influencers, trendsetters and executives behind buying decisions – the very people who drive the adoption of products, technologies and brands in online video's rapidly expanding market. Blip TV Launches Overlay Ads - Here is a Beet TV interview with Blip TV's Co-founder & CEO Mike Hudack on the new overlay ads they are inserting into Quicktime files. Inserting ads into online video is not a new development, however dynamically (or baking in, as they are at the moment) overlaying them (with I assume relevant context, I am sick of seeing pre roll ads for things that have nothing to do with the content type of the video) is pretty new.... kind of. YouTube, Brightcove and Video Egg already do overlay ads, so Blip TV is simply providing another monetization option to their customers. Blip TV is also home to quite a few popular web series such as Rocketboom and their sister show JetSet so it's a logical move on their part to offer options. Tech Crunch's goes into their relationship with Rocketboom right here. Mike thinks the overlay is a happy medium between pre and post roll ads, and I would tend to agree, but it depends on the context. I will explain. GO AWAY! I hate pre roll ads. HATE THEM. But the business of online video actually pays my rent, so I can't hate it that much. In any case, there are times when a pre roll ad would actually be better than an overlay ad. Example? Multi segment shows, the sort that Blip TV hosts. Here is an example of one we made at work today. I will be damned if I have to watch over ten minutes of video with an overlay ad slapped across it. I don't think so. I would much rather deal with a 15 second pre roll ad before each segment than have to put up with a constantly changing overlay that never goes away. That is annoying and diminishes my focus on the video content. In the case of a single video file not exceeding ten minutes, I wouldn't mind an overlay. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THAT? It drives me nuts when I have to watch an ad that has nothing to do with the video I am waiting for. Not just from a regular joe perspective - although I think a regular joe deserves contextually relevant ad placement (nod to the king of this, Google, who culls my deepest desires from my inbox and adjusts the surrounding ads), but from a digital producer POV. It's just bad business. I know it's important to make money, but doesn't it make more sense to place your ad on videos that enhance and/or extend your message? Don't make me watch your son banging a drum while an ad for discounted paper products flashes it's useless message at me from the lower left/right corner. Or something about Viagra. Yes, I hate discounted paper products and Viagra. Once again, I think ad relevance/context is key and what will be crucial to the success of overlays.