YouTube Expands Shopping Features Following Digital Advertising Slowdown

YouTube is ramping up its push into ecommerce by introducing shopping features to the world's biggest videos site, seeking to diversify revenue streams during a slowdown in digital advertising. From a report: The platform, a division of Google parent Alphabet, has introduced the new function to Shorts, YouTube's short-form video offering that was launched in 2020 to compete against the popularity of fast-growing rival TikTok. This will mean users will be able to buy products as they scroll through videos. YouTube is also testing new commission schemes for influencers who sell products through links in videos, as it battles to hold on to its so-called creators -- users who make content on YouTube -- against fierce competition from rivals.

"Our goal is to focus on the best monetisation opportunities for creators in the market," Michael Martin, YouTube Shopping's general manager, told the Financial Times in his first interview since joining the company six months ago. YouTube's expansion of its shopping features comes as tech groups rush to diversify their revenue streams in response to a slowing economy and a depressed digital advertising market. At Alphabet's last earnings, YouTube's ad sales revenue declined and missed analyst estimates for the first time since the parent company started reporting its performance separately in 2020.

Great, more products shoved in our faces

[Scoth]

Is there anywhere really still left you can consume much of any media without having BUY NOW! buttons shoved in your face? I don't even mind ads too much, plus a lot of sites have an ad-free version I can choose to pay for, but I'm sick of everywhere I go turning into a shopping site pushing products at me.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

Paper books are mostly free of ads still. Though some of them shove a few ads in on either end, you aren't gonna get a full-page ad in the middle of a battle scene or something.

I remember when the phrase, "The Internet should just be TV with a buy button on it," started making the rounds I laughed my ass off over it. I'm not laughing now.

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[x_t0ken_407]

I'd never heard of Odysee before, thank you for this.

Re: fuck off with the ad's

[newcastlejon]

Iâ(TM)m ambivalent. On the one hand any ads are bad, but on the other I'd rather watch a more traditional ad than Keifer Sutherland hawking trading apps that lose most users money, those that are for literal pyramid scams or those shoving snake oil and fad diets.

All ads are shit, but the ones on YouTube take the fucking biscuit. The ASA ought to be all over them.

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[CaptQuark]

I refuse to watch "shorts" and I hope YouTube gets the message and content creators go back to regular length content.

Tying to replicate the short-attention-span format of TicTok viewers isn't a great idea.

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[cayenne8]

I refuse to watch "shorts" and I hope YouTube gets the message and content creators go back to regular length content.

Is there any way to remove the "shorts" from your feed? I don't want to see them in my suggested feeds, or even my subscriptions.

If I wanted the TikTok experience, I'd have signed up for it and enjoyed giving the chinese all my data.

I'm not on YouTube to watch shorts or buy shit.

YouTube is slowly killing itself

[Anonymous Coward]

It changed its desktop web interface a couple of weeks ago which not only removed shorts from each channel's "Uploads" playlist but also about 1/2 of their recent regular videos as well. If you want to see those videos you got notifications about there's a >50% chance you'll only be able to do that from one of the mobile apps.

This is messing with its content creators revenue streams. I hope they're getting pissed off and jumping ship to other platforms.

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[caseih]

Kind of glad they've put shorts on their own tab and out of site. Seems like youtube has been pushing people (in other words punishing those who don't go along with it) to make these ridiculous vertical videos but I've yet to be convinced anyone really wants them or likes them. I mean people with short attention spans and narrow screens are already watching rubbish on tiktok so why would they watch it on youtube? Anyway been kind of nice because while this change broke all the decent third-party youtube-

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[slipped_bit]

I curse whoever started putting cameras in phones and didn't make the software always default to landscape regardless of how the phone was held. Even on day one the sensors were cheap and big enough to be completely square and crop in software.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. If a video is in portrait mode (or switches to it mid-stream like when someone embeds another video in their own), I often stop watching. I figure if the person recording it didn't care enough to fill my screen with details, then it's not important enough to watch. Even worse are those who decide to "convert" it to landscape mode by placing a blurry, zoomed-in version in the background instead of just leaving black bars.

The Mid Terms were an advertising bonanza

[rsilvergun]

So it's no surprise. It's crazy how you have an event like that, where literally billion flooded in, and you can't just say "that was nice, back to normal", you have to feed Wall Street the same every day or it grows hungry for flesh.

What ads?

[devslash0]

The last time I saw an ad on youtube was good 5 years ago. Since it's one of the most frequently used online platforms, adblockers do a great job at cutting all the crap out, and staying up-to-date with their blacklists.

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[cayenne8]

The last time I saw an ad on youtube was good 5 years ago. Since it's one of the most frequently used online platforms, adblockers do a great job at cutting all the crap out, and staying up-to-date with their blacklists.

Is there a good way to do this outside of a desktop computer?

Can you somehow block it while watching on:

iPad?

iPhone?

And I usually watch most of my YouTube on my main house televisions through my streaming boxes like FireTV and Apple TV....is there. a way to Adblock on the modes of watch

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[muh_freeze_peach]

Yes there is, but it is lots of work and still lets things thru. google pi-hole and adguard.

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[cayenne8]

Yes there is, but it is lots of work and still lets things thru. google pi-hole and adguard.

Thank you!!

:)

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[muh_freeze_peach]

I was given the same advice when I asked a similar question here on /. - just paying it forward - i am on the fence as to whether I want to tinker with a pi-hole or just buy an adguard router and call it good.

Digital advertising slowdown?

[DontBeAMoran]

Slowdown my ass, I've never been pestered by so many ads in my life, YouTube has become annoyingly bad with ads for the past few months.

Lack of Control

[dohzer]

Non-rewindable/skippable videos are a major reason I never went on Facebook 2.0. How/why the fuck to people put up with this on TikTok and YouTube Shorts?!

So, I guess Steve Ballmer was right after all.

[kurkosdr]

So, I guess Steve Ballmer was right when he called Google a "house of cards" of a company. Turns out that you can't build a stable tech empire on top of online advertising revenue, because there is no guarantee that advertising spending from advertisers will scale with users. I mean, even the most ardent "Web 2.0" supporters are a little bit uneasy about the fact that the whole thing is funded by merchants proverbially "hawking their wares". All it takes is a real bear market to happen (urging said merchant

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[NoWayNoShapeNoForm]

So, I guess Steve Ballmer was right when he called Google a "house of cards" of a company. Turns out that you can't build a stable tech empire on top of online advertising revenue, because there is no guarantee that advertising spending from advertisers will scale with users.

And that is what I hear Micr0$haft is trying to do with Windows 11...placing ads within that OS.

Maybe Micr0$haft's days are also numbered?

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[kurkosdr]

First of all, Ballmer has left Microsoft. Secondly, Microsoft has still retained their ability to charge for Windows though. The only concession they made is free upgrades, which they can revoke with Windows 12 if they want. Also, let me tell you that Google's days aren't numbered, but they might have to do "deep cuts" like Facebook did if the ad spend keeps going south, which will reduce their ability to retain talent. Hence why they aren't a stable tech empire. But it won't kill them as a company.

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[kurkosdr]

Oh and btw you are not smart by saying things like "Micr0$haft".

shopify

[acdc_rules]

is this not: https://blog.youtube/news-and-... [blog.youtube] announced 4 months ago? i can't read the paywalled FT article

The Shorts are Shit

[nukenerd]

uBlock Origin stops the ad breaks, and I would not watch Youtube without it.

But no doubt aware of people like me, there is an increasing tendency for Youtubers themselves to change their talk smoothly into promoting something, and it can take 5-10 seconds to realise it, which really pisses me off. At least you can fast forward though the rest of it, and make a mental note to boycott the crap they are selling, but it just wastes time.