Google officially launched Google Gadgets as an ad unit tonight after about three months of pilot testing.

Google’s AdWords platform now supports Google Gadget content in addition to existing text, image, and video offerings. The gadget ads feature an entirely new widget analytics platform for tracking gadget success and interaction, an open caching proxy hosted by Google’s geo-distributed servers, and the introduction of YouTube as a video hosting and transcoding platform free from any Google branding. I previously covered Google’s upcoming advertising widgets in early May.

YouTube ad hosting
Google is promoting YouTube as a video hosting and transcoding destination for advertisers. The Google Gadget Ads tutorial page includes detailed instructions for separating hosted Flash video content from an advertiser’s video playback tools. This tutorial is the first time I have seen Google promote the use of YouTube in an without Google branding.

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