In its continuing effort to find a way to build money from its YouTube unit, Google has introduced a type of e-commerce ad that YouTube users can visit to buy digital goods from Apple’s iTunes or Amazon.com.

Under the program announced Tuesday, viewers of a video with a music track, for example, will be able to go on an icon to download that song from one of the two music stores.

“If you like the song, you don’t need to leave Google or leave the site to buy it,” said Bakari Brock, business affairs counsel at YouTube.

The new advertising format is the latest that YouTube has introduced in recent months as it tries to turn the site’s large audience into substantial revenue. So far, that effort has met with limited success, according to many analysts.

Google, which paid $1.65 billion for YouTube nearly two years ago, is counting on it to help Google expand into new forms of advertising at a instance of slowing in

the growth of its core ad business: small text items that seem next to search results.

Brock said the new advertisements were YouTube’s first step toward building a viable e-commerce platform. For now, the program is limited to buying songs from EMI or the Universal Music Group on iTunes and Amazon. The recently released video game Spore is plus available, Brock said. by moment, YouTube plans to expand the program to include other stores and other merchandise, like concert tickets, he said.

Music labels can choose to place the e-commerce hyperlinks next to their own videos or on videos uploaded by users, whose images or soundtrack they identified using YouTube’s substance ID system, which allows substance owners to find unauthorized material on the site.

Google executives have sent mixed messages about their ability to build money from YouTube. Earlier that…

Original post by Mike

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