First-order effects

• CNN's partnership with YouTube makes the debate itself the advertisement: the format promotes both brands and the platform simultaneously, validating Techdirt's claim that separating 'ads' from 'content' narrows the option set.
• YouTube's own product moves point the same direction — the related-videos feature in the embedded player (June 8, 2007) was flagged by observers as a potential moneymaker precisely because it monetizes inside the content experience rather than beside it.

Second-order effects

• Political campaigns gain a channel where participation is the ad: under You Choose '08, candidate videos are content that functions as campaign advertising, shifting spend away from bought TV spots toward produced-for-distribution video.
• Broadcast networks face pressure to open flagship formats like debates to platform partnerships, since the CNN deal shows user-generated questions can be the draw rather than a liability.

Third-order effects

• If the ads-are-content thesis holds, the structural wall between editorial and advertising that organized broadcast economics weakens, and value accrues to whoever controls distribution of the blended unit — the platform, not the slot buyer.
• The open question this analysis cannot settle from the record: whether such blending sustains premium pricing or commoditizes it once every piece of content competes as promotion.