Overlay.tv

The ability to watch our favorite shows on the Internet has been a blessing to many folks who don’t have the time to catch their stories at the regular time they’re on. Anyone with the Internet can watch an episode of 30 Rock at their leisure, but unlike DVR, the Internet doesn’t always offer viewers the opportunity to skip those pesky commercials. The folks at Overlay.TV have come up with a solution for this promotional problem. Instead of getting rid of advertisements altogether, The interactive media startup out of Ottawa’s alternative is to integrate them into the program, via clickable product placement and information within the video player’s real estate, which appears throughout the course of the video. The site allows for ‘internet users, content owners and e-commerce sites to monetize and customize their video assets by overlaying contextual information directly onto online video content and linking to external websites.’ For instance, if you like a character’s backpack, you could click on it and find out where to buy it. If that’s not friendly to viewer and corporate behemoth alike then what, pray tell, is?