David Eun, vice president of Google

By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter

Google said it will forge partnerships with newspaper companies within and outside Korea to publish video news articles on Youtube, and share the advertising revenue from it.

David Eun, Google's vice president of content who is visiting Seoul, said Tuesday that the firm is having ``deep discussions'' with various content providers here, and will announce deals very soon over a wide range of digital content.

``Almost everything is pretty much set up. The only thing short now is advertisements, but it will soon add up,'' Eun told The Korea Times as he attended the DICON 2007 conference in Seoul, Tuesday.

Eun said that partners will have options in the video news business.

``You can have video content on your own Web sites and generate revenue from the ads. Or you can make a `branded channel' on Youtube and have sub-channels for individual reporters, then draw the traffic back to the newspapers' Web site. It's up to you,'' he said.

In either case, the video news will be accompanied by a small, issue-specific advertisement on the bottom, he said.

The projected alliance between Google and traditional media can potentially benefit both sides.

Google purchased Youtube for $1.65 billion last November as so-called user-created content (UCC) has emerged as the new goldmine on the Internet. But the search engine giant hasn't found a way to produce meaningful profits out of the free video-sharing service, yet.

Old media, on the other hand, have complained that the Internet portals and news services are eating away their online and offline advertising revenue. In Korea, papers are in conflict with Internet portals such as Naver and are urging them to stop showing past articles older than one week.

``As journalists do, we (Google) have similar view of providing information to people and educating people,'' Eun said, stressing that Google will not own the news content by themselves and will share advertising revenue.

The Google vice president demonstrated the new advertisement format for Youtube during the conference.

The mini commercials appear at the bottom of a video clip in transparent letters, taking about 20 percent of the screen. When the user clicks on it, the ad occupies the full screen.

The video-in-display ad, as he calls it, gives an ``uninterrupted viewing experience'' and has shown high click rates and high retention rates during test services, he said.

Eun, a Korean-American, graduated from Harvard Law School and worked for Time Warner before joining Google.

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr