Context Trumps Content.

The projection that advertisers will spend an estimated $5.6bn on YouTube in 2013 baffles me.  I'm sure these advertisments run, but I wonder if advertisers are questioning how many people actually watch them.

Yes, they'll focus intensely on the five second countdown box before skipping the ad or, in the absence of that option,  they'll switch to another tab on their screen before  returning to view the desired content after thirty seconds. But actually watching the ad is another thing - how ever subconsciously engaging the first second of it might be.

Google made classified advertising more efficient. Users liked that because that was the content for which they were looking. On YouTube it's not.