There’s something almost exciting about being proven wrong. When I said that I didn’t think Google would be able to monetize YouTube, and thus justify its enormous price tag, I really believed that. To be honest… a small part of me still does.

But Google’s new video ads may just end up proving me wrong. Ultimately… that’s a good thing.

If they can really sell these ads for $20 CPM, Google might just be able to sell enough of these to make YouTube their best purchase yet. They could make a ton on these, even if they have to give half of their revenues to the content owners.

Luckily I was able to find an example of one of these ads to watch myself (thanks to the Vlog Blog for providing the link).

After seeing these ads in action, I can finally start to believe that Google knew what they were doing. And if DoubleClick is doing the selling I could see them doing at least a few hundred million dollars with these ads alone (on top of what YouTube already makes).

- Matt