YouTube Video-to-Shirt Ads

Google Inc., seeking to show investors it can wring a profit from Internet videos, first has to show Hewlett-Packard Co. its YouTube Web site can help sell printer ink.

While Google doesn't break out YouTube's sales, Credit Suisse analyst Heath Terry in New York expects the site to generate about $205 million this year, or 1.2 percent of total revenue, climbing in 2011 to $1.36 billion, or 3.5 percent. YouTube will show an operating profit by mid-2009, says Jeffrey Lindsay at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. Collection of best online videos.

Hewlett-Packard has been among the first clients using other YouTube ad programs, including video spots. The site uses the tests to see what works and to show other companies how they can customize their campaigns, said Shiva Rajamaran, a product manager at YouTube in San Bruno, California. All about Facebook.com

Google has yet to turn a profit on the $1.65 billion it plunked down in 2006 to buy YouTube, more than 100 times the video-sharing Web site's annual revenue. New marketing formats, such as Hewlett-Packard's, may help close the gap and lessen Google's reliance on the Internet search ads that provide the bulk of its $16.6 billion in annual sales.