I visited SF for a meeting today and listened to some podcasts from Ad:tech SF on the train. The main focus on several of the podcasts was how businesses could advertise or make money off of video and user generated content (UGC). Several of the points that the presenters at Ad:tech made were echoed in an article on WebGuild.

In an article called “Turning the Long Tail Into the Big Tail”, Jean-Marie Le Ray echoes what executives at the video advertising networks have seen. Advertisers are looking to target groups of users (for example, men ages 20-35) and just want to buy a spread of ads across many networks. It is great if they are concentrated in just a few sites, but it does not really matter. If the advertisers can reach the same group without having to pay big bucks to advertise next to premium content, they will do it. They are less concerned about being able to brag that they have advertised on the latest iTunes downloads of “Lost” than being able to show that for the same cash spread among 50 sites, they reached a higher number of people with a better response.

The part that I found most interesting in the article is

the first ad server that creates the RELEVANT mix to match advertisers’ needs on one side with the legitimate monetization expectations of content creators on the other side (matching the inventory of the latter based on the message of the former), will win the jackpot. Even if there are still a few unknowns.

Basically advertisers are interested more in well-rounded campaigns managed by an ad platform to reach their target audience. Meanwhile if anyone can figure out the magic formula for making money off of UGC, you will have their ad money.