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AOL's advertising division, Platform-A, developed the video ticker ads as an alternative to conventional pre-roll spots for online video.

Advertisers and networks want to balance the placement of their video marketing with the likelihood such placement won't backfire by annoying the targeted audience. They have experimented with dropping ads before the video, after the video, and even in the middle like a typical TV commercial.

AOL will venture where Google has traveled with its ads on YouTube. Through work with Gannett's PointRoll and its TickerBoy technology, AOL built a video ticker that runs within a streaming video without obstructing it.

When a viewer clicks on a video ad, it will expand within the video player's window. Ads will be in video or Flash format, based on what the marketer created for the spot.

The video ticker appears 10 seconds into the video stream. That ticker fades away after 15 seconds, but the viewer will be able to click a branded link atop the video player to bring it back.

AOL's debut of the video ticker format comes as part of other new advertising options emerged. They include the ability to make content like email and social networks available from the video player; new ad inventory with 300x250 interstitials and synced text ads; and a new user interface and development framework for creating ads.

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