Nothing really ruins a video experience like an ad. Right when we get engrossed in the process, boom. The ad pops up and ruins our day. The Chromecast has previously been immune to these issues, as there has not been ads on them in the past. Now, that all changes. Brightcove Inc. is a cloud service video provider, and they have used the newly released Chromecast SDK to make it so that developers of apps will have a way to “quickly deploy and monetize feature-rich video on Chromecast, including personalized video ads. This development, called Brightcove Once, is a self-proclaimed “high-end delivery alternative” for advertisements that do not require the use of things like SDKs or plugins. According to Brightcove, these ads, which will be geo-targeted, can be integrated into the video stream without buffering and will provide Chromecast users with a “television-like” experience. Google has ironically stay away from putting ads on its $35 dongle, which tells us that either they never intended for it to have ads, or that they have not gotten around to revealing it yet.
The chief technology officer of Brightcove, AJ McGowan, has said that “Chromecast has quickly become one of the top three selling electronics devices on Amazon and offers some of the most popular online entertainment options, including Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus and Google Play movies and music, with new apps coming on board at a rapid pace. Broadcasters and content owners that want to quickly take advantage of Chromecast can now leverage Brightcove Once to deliver premium video content streams that include targeted advertising.” The question remains how exactly the Chromecast community will respond to this change. While it has been one of Google’s best-selling bits of technology, the fact that it was ad-free was a major appeal. Now that developers can slip in ads into the content, we will have to wait and see just how the market responds. I honestly feel that ads are crap if you are paying for a service, so I am not the biggest fan of this. I know it is a great way for companies to make money, but that’s just my personal opinion. We’ll see how this all pans out. What do you think? Are you still considering buying a Chromecast, or will you keep using the one you already have? Let us know down below in the comments!