What's the secret recipe for making the jump from the Web to TV? Food, evidently. The way to our eyeballs is indeed through our stomachs, whether for the youth-skewing Annoying Orange, a series about talking fruit that's landed a TV deal, or Epic Meal Time, the ultimate guy-centric show about insanely large bacon-laden meals that dudes eat with in-your-face attitude, the latest Web show to hit paydirt with TV.

So, yeah. Netflix messed up so badly this year that its CEO garnered a sketch on Saturday Night Live. And, sure, stock prices have plummeted. And okay, now the company has taken a beating in the annual retailer survey conducted by Foresee. But could its woes be ending? Let's dig into two recent studies to understand how the Internet giant is poised for 2012.

You're probably watching the cute baby polar bear video anyway. (Wait. Don't tell me you haven't seen the Danish polar bear Siku?) In any case, now YouTube users can let the site know which cute animal, baby or other form of adorab-ilia they like best.

Each day, more than 150 years worth of YouTube videos are watched on Facebook, an increase of 2.5 times the amount viewed a year ago. What's more, every minute Web users are sending more than 500 tweets containing YouTube links, tripling over last year, according to stats from YouTube. Indeed, video is growing more social. Plus, YouTube has said that 100 million people take a social action each week on YouTube, which could range from likes to shares to comments.

Mobile video is slated to become a bigger business in 2012, with a number of video ad technology firms upping their mobile offerings. Companies such as Jivox and Rhythm are aiming to capture more of the ad market in mobile video in the year ahead with new ad formats and technology. eMarketer has predicted that mobile ad spending in the United States would rise 65% this year to $1.23 billion, and then jump again to $1.8 billion in 2012. Some of that growth will come from video ads, with more players jumping into video marketing messages on mobile phones in …

If you're working today, you probably need an online video pick-me-up, rather than more stats, research or news on this fabulous and fast-growing sector of the digital ad economy. And what better form for said spirits-booster to come in than a cat video? As readers may know, cat videos are - paws down - my favorite Web videos. Plus, this one has an ad angle. The social media ad agency Big Fuel Communications, known for its work on behalf of Bravo, GM, Clorox and others, partnered with the Humane Society of NY to create a cat video calendar.

An online video campaign for a television show can drive tune-in to the show itself, especially when the ads are personalized with local information for broadcast stations. In fact, a well-executed tune-in video ad campaign can yield about a 20% lift in viewer intent to watch a show, said Mixpo, an online video ad technology provider, which studied the effect of Web video ads on tune-in for TV shows in a white paper.

For better or worse, clicks are still the currency by which many marketers measure success in online advertising, and early evening ranks as the most effective time for generating clicks on online video ads. That's the result of a new study by ad platform TubeMogul. While online video is often used as a branding mechanism for marketers, many do still want to drive clicks, which could range from encouraging viewers to share a link on Twitter, have a conversation on a brand's Facebook fan page, or even buy a product online, TubeMogul said in its report. Clicks are often more …

Engagement with interactive online video ads can spike if targeted in a highly tailored fashion to the right consumer. That's what video ad network Tremor Video learned during a recent campaign for an adult beverage targeting Hispanics. In an innovative use of creative and ad formats, Tremor Video relied on English language creative, but then added interactivity in the Spanish language in the form of a "call to engagement" that yielded an average engagement of 105 seconds with the interactive portion of a 15-second pre-roll, said Jason Krebs, chief media officer for Tremor Video.

Does it pay for video publishers to develop apps specifically for the new Amazon Kindle Fire? Some early evidence says yes. MeFeedia, which aggregates video from 30,000 publishers, saw a tripling in installs on Android platforms as soon as it released a Kindle-Fire native app optimized for the 7-inch screen a few weeks ago. As a result of the tweaks, that app has ranked in the top 100 in Amazon's app store in the entertainment category since its release, up from its prior ranking of 1,500 when the app was available for the Android platform, but not yet tailored for …