Pre-rolls don’t work for advertisers that want to reach a youth audience - “Custom Skins” and “Editorial Integration” is the way to go to monetize online video, according to Ricky Van Veen, co-founder of the vastly popular online video site CollegeHumor.com.

Collegehumor.com is one of the most interesting online video companies out there. This afternoon I had the privilege of listening to Ricky Van Veen, its 27 year-old Co-Founder and Editor, do a keynote at Ypulse College Mashup in Santa Monica, CA.

For those of you who don’t know about it, CollegeHumor.com was founded in 1999 by two high school friends from Baltimore, Maryland, who went to different colleges. Basically it was a way to share all of the pictures, videos, and links their friends would IM and e-mail each other. Now it's a lot bigger and has since been acquired by Barry Diller’s IAC (NSDQ: IACI).

The average age in the Collegehumor office is 24, which says a lot about the company.
“We’re the first generation to use the Internet before we had sex. With my friends at Facebook, it’s certainly true and, I’m sad to say, for us as well,” he said.

The companies’ elevator pitch is as simple as it is smart:
“If something's funny on the Internet, it's either on here or linked from here.”

“Also our editorial voice is important. It has personality and keeps people engaged”, he said.

Basically, they have realized that they can’t be everything to everyone and the number one thing – ORIGINAL CONTENT FOR THE WEB.

The formula use cheap actors they find off Craigslist and then try to find topics that are like “Candy Corn,” something that people know about that don’t think of every day. The more Sophomoric, the better.

“We have found that videos that are 2-3 minutes long and the hook comes within the first 20 seconds works best,” he said.

Pre-rolls are too intrusive for the web experience, according to Van Veen, he has found that custom skins surrrounding the editorial content as well as well-done, topical editoral integration is the way to go.

"When you are watching a TV commercial you are on the couch and relaxing, but when you are on the web you are leaning forwards and being active and don't want to wait 15 seconds to get to the content you want," he said.

Joakim Baage

Photo By CollegeHumor.com