Short Stacks
Since YouTube first created Shorts, its short-form vertical video feed (who are we kidding: its TikTok copycat), the company has struggled to get the program off the ground.
Wait a minute. Off the ground?
As of last May, YouTube disclosed that Shorts vids had been viewed more than 5 trillion times in the less than three years since launch. In October, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler disclosed to investors that, in total, Shorts are viewed more than 70 billion times per day and growing.
But while YouTube generates vast Shorts view counts by placing super-short vids directly into people’s normal feeds, it can’t so easily manufacture demand for those impressions.
Digiday reports that among a cohort of YouTube creators, long-form content monetizes between $3 and $6 RPMs (revenue per thousand views). Shorts RPMs are more like 15 cents, which reflects the weaker advertiser demand for Shorts ads.
At the same time, creators can’t just revert to focusing on long-form content that earns more. TikTok is still a viral engine for organic or viral distribution, and that’s mostly content that can be cross-posted to YouTube. Plus, the YouTube algo wants to see Shorts. So that’s that.
Office (Ad) Space
Microsoft is quietly testing a free, ad-supported desktop version of Microsoft Office with limited features, consumer tech blog Beebom reports.
Windows users can download the Office suite, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint, from Microsoft’s website. Then, when launching one of the desktop apps, a pop-up prompts the user to log into their Office account. If they select the “Skip for now” option rather than logging in, the ad-supported mode is activated.
The ad experience consists of a persistent banner on the right-hand side of the screen, as well as 15-second muted video ads that play every few hours when using the apps.
The ad-supported version lacks some features, such as speech-to-text functionality and some formatting options. And users can also only save their files to Microsoft OneDrive (although files can then be downloaded from OneDrive).
Microsoft rolled out the ad-supported desktop version of Office without fanfare, suggesting the monetization angle isn’t a major priority. Beebom notes that Microsoft hasn’t mentioned the ad-supported Office suite on any of its support pages.
Asked for comment by Beebom, Microsoft confirmed it has been conducting “limited testing” of ad-supported Office but said it has no plans for a wider launch.
An Arm And A Chegg
Google is being sued by Chegg, an educational tech and services company, over its rollout of AI Overviews (AIOs), the generative AI responses embedded atop some search results.
Chegg’s nonsubscriber traffic was down 8% year over year in Q2 2024, according to the complaint. But since the midyear expansion of Google AIOs, Chegg’s nonsubscriber traffic plummeted to 49% by January 2025, Search Engine Land reports.
“Google AIO has transformed Google from a ‘search engine’ into an ‘answer engine,’ displaying AI-generated content sourced from third-party sites like Chegg,” according to the complaint.
Chegg is also taking a philosophical stance, since the change in Google Search behavior means students “losing access to quality, step-by-step learning in favor of low-quality, unverified AI summaries.”
Expect more suits like this one, even if Chegg doesn’t win. Because generative AI searches are inscrutable. If a brand is unfairly characterized in Google AIOs, there’s no instruction manual, customer service, best practices, paid media or any other mechanism to influence what that thing spits out.
But Google will wheel and deal to avoid hassle and bad press. Chegg could angle for a quiet traffic bump or a better deal to license its content.
But Wait! There’s More
Following a scathing Adalytics report, DoubleVerify announces it will offer URL-level reporting. [Adweek]
Brands turn to clean rooms in their quest for streaming TV transparency. [Ad Age]
Microsoft Bing is testing a new Copilot generative AI search experience. [Search Engine Roundtable]
Daily Mail puts up its first paywall in the US. [Adweek]
Pew study finds 16% of US workers regularly use AI in the workplace, and those who do say it only speeds up productivity rather than improving quality. [Pew Research]
The real reasons why CMOs get fired. [Adweek]
You’re Hired
Amazon hires Disney’s Jennifer Mock Donohue to lead its local advertising business. [LinkedIn post]
Fox appoints Julie Triolo as SVP of product marketing for the network’s ad sales division. [release]
Thanks for reading AdExchanger’s daily news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
