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YouTube, the popular video website has begun trials on pre-roll ads against the premium content from its UK partners. The first partner to test the new format is broadcaster Channel 4 along with other partners such as National Geographic, BBC Worldwide, ITN and Discovery Networks over the coming weeks.

During the tests, premium content owners will be free to dictate which content and how much of the content will be open to advertisers. The sales staff at YouTube will be selling the ads on a CPM basis and revenues will be shared between both sides. Time caps will ensure the ads are suitably placed rather than appearing before each piece of content.

The first advertisers to experiment with the new formats are Match.com, Nissan, Renault, and Activision. Additionally, 15-second ads for Warner Brother’s movie ‘The Hangover’ is already appearing on YouTube before the content from Channel 4. A time limit of 30 seconds per ad will be imposed by YouTube.

Suveer Kothari, the UK head of YouTube said in a statement that the tests are aimed at helping YouTube balance the demands of advertisers, content owners and users more effectively. YouTube also hopes that by providing premium content, providers will have a better scope of monetising their content and they will be encouraged to place more content on the site.

StumbleUpon is said to be one of the biggest names in social discovery. The toolbar helps to provide a simple way to rate the content, discover cool stuff and share the same with others, depending on your preference.

This new type of tool is said to bring a full-fledged social toolbar along with the content of Twitter. It also has an exceptionally appropriate name: StumbleTweets. StumbleTweets is a Firefox extension with an iframe.

StumbleTweets imitates the core features, with regards to the StumbleUpon toolbar, but with a Twitter twist. The core of StumbleTweets has the capability to stumble through the links that are shared on Twitter. Clicking on this logo takes you to the new random page. Once you arrive, it shows you the author of tweet, the number of retweets, and the genuine tweet text itself.

However, one of the best StumbleTweets features that StumbleUpon does not have is the capability to search within the toolbar. StumbleTweets is also available in the form of an iFrame toolbar for people using non-Firefox browsers. The iFrame is said to have far less functionality.

Twitter is said to be one of the greatest networking tools and has gained huge popularity over the past few years. It is also seen as a simple means of communication along with advertisement that goes beyond all sorts of networking tools.

Presently, there are only a few sites that actually support Twitter, out of which these few are possibly ruining the entire Twitter experience. There is evidence to suggest that such sites need to be changed at times. Now, there is said to be a new launch on the market called TwtUpon with added features as well as advanced technologies available compared to the models available so far.

The main idea behind forming this TwtUpon tool is to build a whole new Twitter experience for its users. TwtUpon allows its users to search new Twitter profiles that are based on their profile feedback as well as their interests. With the help of such tools, users can get to know just how influential they are amongst other Twitter users.

You also get an opportunity to handpick popular individuals who can bring you more followers in order to gain benefit over your objectives. Popular users are said given more exposure based on their feedback.

According to the latest report by Aarkstore Enterprise, the worldwide online advertising industry has seen a speedy emergence of social networking sites and they are growing rapidly regardless of the economic downturn.

The growth of the online advertising industry is mainly due to the increasing number of internet users, increased awareness and the rising broadband subscription rate and ecommerce that plays a major role in this industry. In the coming years it is expected that online ad spending will overtake the television advertising market.

The advertising industry is divided into diverse segments but there are only three major segments (display, search and classifieds) that represent the entire industry. Rich media is the newest segment that has recently penetrated into the online advertising industry catering to a small section of the market while display, classifieds and search serves approximately 80% of the online advertising industry.

There are a number of revenue models among which pay-per click and pay-per-impression are the most popular. In terms of the online advertising spending by geography, the Netherlands, UK and the pan-European region lead the market. In terms of internet advertising budget allocation, Germany, Spain, Italy and France have a strong presence. For the advertising industry, the US is the most developed market.

As a company, Google seems to be expanding in the right way. To keep up with the success of the search engine, members of the company are beginning to shoulder more responsibility than before. The latest news is that Dan Cobley, the company’s director of marketing for the UK, Ireland and Benelux will now assume marketing responsibilities in Europe as well.

The expansion of his role will mean taking on the marketing responsibility for country geographies which include the Nordics and Germany. However, he will not be alone, as previous head of EMEA marketing Lorraine Twohill has stepped up to the post of Google’s global marketing vice president.

Previously, Cobley has held the positions of marketing director of Ask Jeeves and Capital One’s vice president of brand and marketing. Google stated that as they wanted to expand his role, they re-addressed its regions. However, Cobley will not be replacing anyone directly.

Before joining Google in 2003, Twohill was Opodo’s head of marketing. She will now be responsible for the marketing of Google’s business services globally and consumer offerings.

Google is currently making 200 marketing and sales staff redundant. Of these, 100 are said to come from outside the US. The company also said that it had incompetent overlapping roles and had invested a little too much when preparing for the forecasted growth.