Wow. The search for a workable form of content and advertising may be over, and, appropriately enough, Google turns out to be one of the key players.
The other, Seth MacFarlane, is a demi-god to a twenty/thirtysomething demographic that knows, loves and relates to his work on the popular animated series broadcast on the Fox network. Together, Google and MacFarlane have been developing Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, a 50-episode web series that will use the AdSense system to distribute the clips to websites that reliably attract a young male audience.
Each Cavalcade clip will incorporate an ad (possibly as a pre-roll, a 'brought to you by' message or as a banner at the bottom of the frame), and will replace the typical static ads that AdSense generally delivers.
Not only has MacFarlane dreamt up a fleet of new characters for the project, he's also engineered a deal which will see him take a percentage of the ad revenue. And although none of the advertisers has been named yet, a number are digging deeper to collaborate with MacFarlane directly on bespoke commercials to run alongside the clips.
The business model is pretty straightforward: for each click on a Cavalcade clip, the associated advertiser pays a fee that is shared among MacFarlane, Google, the site that generated the click and Media Rights, the company negotiating the advertising deals.
This is major stuff, and we recommend you take in The New York Times story (link below), and also the comments posted on Fast Company for a wide-angle view on this exciting story...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/business/30google.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=family+guy&st=nyt&oref=slogin
http://www.fastcompany.com/fast-talk-question/does-deal-struck-between-
