• ClickZ, Tuesday, November 14, 2006 12 PM

There used to be an inventory problem in online advertising; now there are more places to advertise, thanks to user-generated content. However, such content is largely uncensored, so advertisers are waiting for an appropriate way to advertise to emerge.

Instead of waiting, advertisers should tap their audiences to create user content for their brands, says Sarah Fay, president of interactive agency Isobar. The concept of control was always illusory, Fay says, and advertisers that open their brand to users' control will ultimately be better respected for it.

That means letting users make commercials for them on sites like YouTube, but Suzie Reider, the viral video site's CMO, worries that YouTube may lose its integrity if it "sells out" to too much branding and advertising. Reider says that while it's important for YouTube to include marketers, losing its users would be catastrophic.

Yahoo, meanwhile, has an interesting video solution for advertisers in its new Web show, called "The 9." The daily Webcast uses editors to find the best user-generated content on Yahoo Video. This way, the best (and most appropriate) material rises to the surface, helping users find quality content, and advertisers find safe content.

Read the whole story at ClickZ »