video searching and ad targeting

Searching video is notoriously difficult. That implies a scaling problem for a large video repository like YouTube. Given relatively fixed amounts of video tagging and category information, more videos imply relatively less information for searching among videos and targeting ads to videos.

YouTube’s announcement of new APIs for external use of the YouTube video platform points to better information for video search and ad targeting. Videos uploaded and played through a third-party site are segmented by the specific third-party site. Third-party sites also have differentiated text correlated with the content of associated videos. This additional information allows better video search and better video ad targeting compared to what’s possible for videos uploaded and viewed on the YouTube site.

Online video services have many different niches. Decentralizing video uploading and playing provides a more scalable business for YouTube.