Lack of standards, accountability holding back video ad adoption

It's no secret that advertiser spending on Web video is lagging expectations -- at least for those trying to get more of it.

The topic was much talked about at the OnMedia conference in New York City last month, and before that was the subject of this Vator.tv story in November.

One of the biggest barriers, as BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti told us then, was the lack of standards across the numerous ad networks in measuring how effective an ad is.

What's more important, and how should an advertiser be billed -- after a video view or a click or some other metric?

When I spoke with DadLabs.com co-founder Clay Nichols a while back, he told me that one of the challenges his company has had is advertisers who won't pay unless a viewer watches an entire DadLabs show, episodes of which are often more than five minutes long.

Huge outages like the one experienced by YouTube earlier this month also don't help build confidence among big brand advertisers. 

In the last few weeks, VideoEgg, one of the larger online video sites, has rolled out a new program for its network which will require advertisers to pay only when a viewer interacts with an ad in some way. 

That's a step forward, but there's still a long way to go before we see the kind of standards that prevail in other types of media.

We're going to keep an eye on the trend, which is important for original content creators like Your Truman Show, producers and distributors like For Your Imagination and Nimble TV and online ad networks like ScanScout.

When we see a new development, we'll tell you about it. If you've seen one, post a comment to our newsroom.