Rich Media Ads on Google?

Blogger Jennifer Slegg uncovered today that Google is experimenting with rich media ads. The undisclosed plan will, according to Slegg’s sources, involve site targeted campaigns (rather than contextual) and have interstitials (those that precede a link’s destination), expanding ads and floating ads.

If true, this will be a major departure from Google’s text-only ad setup and could provide a much different (read: inferior) user experience. Although there will be many advertiser benefits that Slegg does a good job of describing.

Along with Google’s decision to censor certain content to enter the Chinese search market, the company is going down paths that many thought it never would. Little is known about the rich medi ad plan, but we’ll follow it as closely as we can.