Still Point

Review: First look at Youtube Adsense Video Units

First impression: It looks… bad. The player is packed full of features, but at first glance the whole package is reminiscent of some Windows app from 1999 (”bigger is better”, fat bordered, bloated mess).

The background gradient fade reminds me of that tank game from ‘93 where you had to guess the angle and velocity of your shot to blow up your opponent.

And what’s up with the 42px of whitespace on the bottom of the player? Fixed!

And there is obviously no design standard for the for the graphic ads that are crammed on the top.

IMO, in order for Youtube Adsense Video Units to be effective, it has to be subtle — get people’s attention with a little video player. Don’t blow out half of their screen real estate. By setting the minimum dimensions to 400×415px, one must ask the question, where the hell are were we supposed to put this thing? How will it ever gracefully fit into a page of content?

Will people use it? Probably, because it’s Google, but I’ll bet there will be many revisions in the near future.

So I see this as a first step, especially with the improved content targeting, but I think it would benefit Google if they make some modifications:

• Redesign the player, get rid of the gradient background, make a hairline border with rounded edges (or at least an option for that) — in short, make it look lightweight