The latest race for improvement in online video tools for advertising seems to lie in online ad verification. The last week alone has brought news from two prominent online video ad networks about enhanced verification tools for video spots. For starters, video ad technology firm BrightRoll said it's introduced new features to its platform for better inventory planning, targeting, and also brand safety. That includes a so-called "BrandWatch Tool" that makes sure ads are placed in safe and "in-view" inventory.

Most of us agree that cord-cutting, for the time being, is an urban myth. Maybe not kidney-in-the-bathtub level of myth, but cord-cutting is just not happening to any great degree. If you disagree, check out the latest stats on multichannel video sub growth. But we might be shaving that ole' cable cord. And it's not only the young folks doing the slicing. Cord shaving is growing quickly among adults 35 to 44, according to a survey of about 1,000 consumers conducted by the management consulting firm Altman Vilandrie & Co. The study found that about 28% of middle age adults …

Most online video viewers are watching in-stream video ads to completion. That's the finding of a new report from campaign management platform MediaMind that analyzed about 1 million impressions and said about 70% of the ads had been played all the way through, and 75% had been played three-quarters through. MediaMind said those numbers underscore the strength of pre-roll and streaming video to deliver a brand message.

Skippable ads are all the rage, and now the Interactive Advertising Bureau is jumping on the bandwagon. The standards body has codified online video ad-skipping, which might seem counterintuitive to a group that wants to promote advertising on the Web. But, on closer inspection, supporting skippability may be a good thing.

With mobile video traffic on a pace to exceed PC traffic, this year will likely bring a slew of mobile video ad innovations. Case in point. Interactive ad technology vendor Jivox is rolling out new features to enable "mobile-optimized landing pages" for any multi-platform campaign that includes smartphones. This is a good thing. How many times have you clicked on a mobile link only to have to scroll across the screen back and forth and back and forth til your eyes pop out? (Happened to me last week. Fortunately, only one eye fell and I popped it back in).

Ever clicked on a video link on your mobile phone only to encounter a video that - gasp - didn't play? Yep, thought so. Me too. Even in this mobile-centric day and age, I still run across videos that just don't start on my smartphone, or videos that require the viewer to scroll back and forth across the screen.

On the eve of its digital video upfront bonanza at the end of this month, Digitas released new research on the engagement possibilities in online video. By sharing the data prior to the two-week upfront marketplace called The NewFront that boasts presentations from Google, Hulu, AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and even NBCU, Digitas is aiming to prime marketers to spend more in online video this year, either as part of their overall TV buys, or by peeling off money from TV and moving it to the Web.

Video search is a nut that needs to be cracked. And while there have been numerous attempts over the years to deliver better video search, the industry still hasn't unearthed an ideal solution. There's movement afoot, though. Joy Marcus, venture partner at DFJ Gotham Ventures, said during the recent Beet.TV executive retreat that she's keeping her eye on several new audio and video recognition technology startups in Israel that may have interesting tools for video search.

This summer's Olympic games won't be the first Olympics to boast thousands of hours of broadband video; but it will likely be the first to deliver the events across so many platforms, from the TV to the desktop to the tablet to the smartphone. That's because video viewing on mobile devices has skyrocketed in the last year. The games then will be an interesting proving ground for digital video technology. To get it right, NBC is going to need to manage a lot of moving parts, from video files to live programming to ads that belong on different devices for …

Viral video is a hit or, mostly, a miss proposition. But socially distributed video, by contrast, is continuing to deliver results for many brands. The latest marketer to make a play in social video is Puma, which is enjoying promising results from a recently launched 90-second video that's already racked up more than one million views. The video - sort of like a short film - focuses on the benefits of living life by going out and hanging out with friends rather than watching reality TV on the couch.