I was invited to try out Google’s beta for TV advertising yesterday. The term AdWords does not really fit here/anymore, but we’ll look past that for the moment. It looks like you cannot target to local TV at this point. It does seems like this would work okay for cable TV advertising. Let me know what your experience is if you try it…

Here is the invite email:

Dear AdWords Advertiser,

You’re one of a select group of advertisers invited to try Google TV Ads beta. The perfect complement to your online campaigns, Google TV Ads makes it easy to reach new customers, drive more traffic and increase your sales volume – turning TV viewers into your customers.

To learn more, join us for an online webinar led by AdWords specialists. Sign up at google.com/adwords/tvads/webinar.html

Are you ready to give Google TV Ads a try? Log in to your AdWords account and click on ‘Create your first television campaign’ in the ‘Other Campaign Types’ section at the bottom of this page.

Now, with Google TV Ads, you can tap into the power of television with the accountability and flexibility of your online advertising campaigns. We look forward to helping you grow your business.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team

Email Preferences: We sent you this email because you inquired about Google TV Ads through our online form and asked to be notified if you became eligible to participate in the Google TV Ads Beta Test.

Copyright 2007. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.
Mountain View, CA 94043

…And here is the confirmation/thank you email after I signed up:

Thank you for submitting your contact information.

We will contact you by email with details to participate in Google TV Ads. Please note: if you indicated interest in local targeting only, we will contact you when local inventory becomes available in the future.

We look forward to enabling you to advertise on TV more efficiently and effectively through better measurement, more accountability and greater optimization.

Sincerely,
The Google TV Ads Team

Update:

Here is a YouTube video about an advertiser’s experience with Google TV Ads:

Here is some more info from MarketingVox: Google Brings TV Advertising to Adwords

Here is some BACKGROUND info from TechCrunch: Google Testing TV Ads in California

Here is a sneak peek at the new abcnews.com ABC goes into the user feedback and why they made some of the design/layout choices.

Here is a sneak peek of the new Hulu.com beta site. I’ll start by saying it is not YouTube. It does have some common elements with YouTube and other video sites, but it does have a dose of professional TV. Let me explain… it has a clean look like YouTube but the video player experience is a bit more like ABC’s video player, albeit unique. It has some cool video user features, including: Share (email to a friend, with the ability to edit a custom clip size), Embed (embed tag, with ability to edit a custom clip), Details (title, original air date, views, studio, genre, description), Feedback (for video tech support trouble shooting), Full Screen mode, Pop Out mode, and Lower Lights mode (area outside of video on page dims). The video quality is great. There is related video below the video area, and below that will be user reviews.

Here is my big picture take away: In the future, NBC et al will release pilots to this site and if there is any activity, they will start to move it toward broadcast. If marketers can test market online prior to the big campaign push, why can’t the professional studios? And we will love participating in the process and be more loyal once it goes on-air because we helped put it there. And because TV is better (hey, we helped decide what gets there) we will watch more (well, by that time your HD TV will just connect to Hulu via the internet and we will get the best of all worlds).

Popular episodes… thumbnails and category links…

Some of the fellas will like this one: Airwolf!! Who knew. Isn’t being your own re-run programmer great?! Note the 300×60 Chevy display ad (see video preroll ad frame below)

Hey look, DETAILS! That’s awesome… because it has been a while since I have loved watching Airwolf. Drivers…start your meta data engines.

Chevy video preroll – 30 seconds, with text countdown above the video…

Check it out when you have a chance and let them know what you think…

…and here is a VC2 tutorial on the new site.

It was the top story when I checked out the site this morning. That’s so Current. Nice.

(follow up to my sneak peak post)

This just in… Here is a sneak peek of CurrentTV‘s new (invite only) Current.com website that Al Gore promoed during the Emmys last month. The site launches to the public on October 15th. Key points are: Explore, Connect, Contribute, Watch. They have a cool “Viewpoints” section that allows people to upload their opinions and for people to vote on it. You can watch the pods online. This site is pretty cool… it is more of a daily homepage than Current.tv… and that is what I was hoping for. Nice job Current… still a big fan! (thx for a peek… of our future)

Update:

Here is the first story I’ve seen, from Multichannel News

And, Hyatt’s words from a 9/18 SFGate story:

“What we’re moving toward (with next month’s launch) is giving them a reason to be on both screens at the same time,” Hyatt said. “What it’s designed to do is, if you’re at Current.com (a soon-to-be-launched Web site), you’re now going to have a reason to walk into a room that has a television and turn on Current TV. And if you’re watching Current TV, you’re going to have a reason to, at the same time, pull open your laptop and go to Current.com.

“We’re going to make those experiences mutually reinforcing, mutually re-enriching, in real time. We’re going to create fully, the first two-screen experience,” Hyatt said.

More screenshots…

“On TV” programming wheel…

“Make TV”…

“People”…

“My Current”

“Make Current”…

…hey look, this post on Current.com relates to my previous posts (NIN, Yahoo) about the record labels…

… and that my friends is what I would call modern media… 360 degree media… full circle media… conversation media… iceberg media (you “see” the top, but the content is really on the bottom)… the traditional equivalent of digg and YouTube and then some (personality, a brand and more dynamic). the rest of the industry will follow (this channel aimed at a hard-to-reach demo) in some manner.

Another blog post re: beta current.com, and another