Less than a half dozen years ago, there was considerable agitation about the indiscriminate use of video news releases. Those provided-for-free video treatments that could easily pass as news footage on local TV newscasts if viewers weren't told. And often, viewers weren't told. Now, news and information Websites are the places to put sponsored video releases. A new survey by D.S. Simon Productions says the use of sponsored videos on news-like Websites has grown by a third just since 2009, and that 80% use unedited video. It's an "enormous opportunity" to get a message across, Simon says.

According to a new study released Thursday by the Internet Advertising Bureau, 63% of the mobile phone video usage happens at home, not when we are, in the motion-like way, being mobile at all. And 36% of that mobile-video-watching is happening in the same room where there is a tablet, laptop or that other large thing in the corner over there that shows pictures. Only three percent of mobile video viewing happens because the mobile device is the only item in the room that can provide video. In fact 92% of these people are so taken by the video they've …

The phrase itself-- social media-must be awfully intimidating for people who are not very social. You might say, Yeah, what is their problem? And the answer would be: Nothing. According to a surprisingly popular video, one out of three and maybe even one out of two people consider themselves to be introverts. Even though They Walk Among Us in great profusion, they're much maligned. It seems almost inarguable to suggest that in a world where social media is so important, some introverts feel alienated. How many friends you have is now a knowable thing and you're kind of graded on …

Everybody started somewhere, and some of them no doubt should have stopped right there. But Tubefilter.com is currently featuring "First Draft Series," a look back at the first vdeos of the "world's greatest video stars." That is YouTube video stars. Those would include Barack Obama-you know him--and Justin Bieber-and you know him---and Jenna Marbles, who hit it big on YouTube with her "I Hate My F---ing Roommate," a video about her roommate, I guess, who brought home an anonymous crying baby, who is driving Jenna Marbles (not her real name) crazy. "Amber alert!" she says. "If you are missing your …

It's really important to share, we always learned, and Unruly Media today announced its top ten list of shared video brands in 2012. The topper is Google, largely based on its "Project Glass: Day One" campaign which features videos about the new Google Uber Alles world around the corner. That's when we'll be wearing glasses that will become mobile Google attachments. So they say. One ad, featuring a 20-something guy walking in New York guided by his Google specs has been seen (but not necessarily shared) over 18 million times. Altogether, Google ads on social media were shared 5,892,608 times, …

The idea of showing movies on flights has a logical history. There were long, long flights. Showing movies to mollify (and make money from) bored passengers was a potentially enjoyable alternative for two hours or so. Still, YouTube's news this week that it will begin offering five of its Google-sponsored channels on Virgin America flights in America and Mexico, seems to be a little bit more newsworthy than when the networks began showing repeats of "Coach" and "Mad About You" so many years ago. Google plunked down $100 million to jump start a suite of about 100 YouTube channels as …

A lot of research prove the very things we always assumed were true in the first place, or prove the points the company that sponsors the research wants it to prove. Or both. Undertone, the ad-serving platform that attempts to help its clients' campaigns by placing the advertisers' video messages on well-regarded Web sites---its Preferred Publisher Portfolio. That's pretty logical. If you want to sell Cadillacs, advertise in The Wall Street Journal. Undertone's clients have run the gamut from AT&T to the Detroit Tigers to Victoria's Secret. Earlier today, Undertone released its study that finds, among other things, that the …

Mefeedia.com, the video search site that aggregates material from YouTube, Vimeo, Blip, the broadcast networks and something like 20,000 other places, has just finished research that shows what you might have expected anyway: Owners of tablets are great viewers of videos available from dedicated apps. According to Mefeedia data, an iPad user will view 7.1 videos per session via an app (and 5.69 for Android table owners). Neither figure is probably hard to believe when you think about your own personal use of the tablet.

There's a promotional video put out by a media tech firm that caught my attention the other day. It promises its new gizmo "will work with any device out here, even the ones that aren't out there yet." That's a great phrase. Yet the product sounds great, so great that it figures this device must have existed before now. There should be a panel, like Underwriters Laboratories, that would give "new" ideas a grade for real newness, the way New York City's health inspectors give "A" ratings to clean restaurants. But by now, of course, every content contract contains similar …

For the tragically unskilled who don't know an Allen wrench from a Phillips screwdriver, the next, welcomed leap from manufacturers should be more and better online videos that show consumers how to fix--or just build--the things they bought. The holiday season, with its urgent exhortations to stay jolly, is also the time of the year when millions of consumers fail miserably trying to insert handlebar Part A into bike stem Slot B. And that is so unjolly.