YouTube’s Newest Ads: Ones You Don’t Have to Watch

The newest twist in Google’s (GOOG) quest to wring more more money out of YouTube: Ads you don’t have to watch.

The world’s biggest video site is trying a “small test” of optional “pre-roll” ads that run at the beginning of its clips. Click on “skip this ad” when the ad starts running and…well, you can guess what happens.

Unlike ad-skipping options offered by other sites, there’s no trade-off with the user here. You simply don’t have to watch the clip.

Given that most online advertising now seems headed in the “big, bigger BIGGEST” direction–come-ons that insist on getting in your face no matter how hard you try to avoid them–this is a pleasant change of pace.

And a smart one, at least theoretically, given that YouTube should be able to charge more for ads users don’t avoid. Just as important, the video site can collect more refined data about the performance of different ads.

I’m okay with preroll ads myself, if they’re short enough and it’s stuff I want to see. And I certainly prefer them to “overlay” ads, which clutter up the bottom of my clip with ugly text that’s a pain to make disappear. But Google (GOOG) and YouTube officials insist I’m in the minority on this one, and that the rest of you guys love them. True?

No ad at all on this one, which I’m only catching up to just now: