Coming to a video site near you: more ads

Google announced Thursday that it will be beta testing a new AdSense program that would place ads in online video.

The company said that the new platform will extend across a variety of video sites, including Brightcove and Yume. Additionally, a number of social video sites including GodTube and others have signed onto the effort.

Google said it will match ads to content based on a number of "signals" within the videos and on the site which they are offered. They will be offered as an overlay, meaning that the video experience will not necessarily be interrupted, just slightly obscured by the ad on the bottom of the viewing window.

Users choose how much they want to interact with the ad, the company said.

"We have two major goals: to make it easier for publishers to monetize video online, and for advertisers to learn how to reach the video community," product manager Shamim Samadi and product marketing manager Ryan Hayward wrote in a blog post announcing the platform.

Certain criteria need to be met in order to participate in AdSense for video beta. Publishers need to serve a minimum of one million video streams per month, operate in the English language and be based in the United States, according to the beta call.

While most people will probably initially balk at the idea of ads within video, new opportunities for a less interrupted viewing experience have opened. Instead of ads preempting the desired stream, these same ads can now be viewed while the actual video plays, say analysts.

In any case, it doesn't appear in-video advertisements are the last stop for Google's ever-increasing online ad presence. "We'll keep testing various formats, iterate and expand, so keep an eye on us," Samadi and Hayward wrote.

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