So much for YouTube taking the high ground and not sticking annoying bumper ads in front of their clips … that's pretty much their exact plan for making money in 2008. Hey, they've gotta make back that $1.65 billion somehow, right? The plan as of now is to slap 30-second ads in front of clips. It isn't clear if there'll be shorter ads as well, if the ads will go in front of every clip, or if the ads will be skippable. I can tell you one thing: there ain't no way I'm sitting through 30 torturous seconds of advertising for a 15 second video of a guy lighting his farts on fire. Don't blow it, Google. [ DirectTraffic ]


UPDATE: False alarm, this is an old story and Google has since changed their plans to the overlay ads we reported earlier.