There's an inventory drought! There's no inventory! It's too hard to get enough inventory in the long tail! I don't want that inventory! It's enough to drive any media planner back to running static gifs.

It was barely one year ago that an explosion of video service providers came streaming to the attention of advertisers. They had names like ROOTV, Brightcove, Maven, Tremor, Broadband Enterprise and the now infamous YouTube -- and your average interactive agency planner/buyer had enough trouble remembering, let alone recommending, which of these VC-backed darlings to get behind. Were they really selling a consumer destination? Or a video platform technology? Or both?

I found myself sifting through a few technical rants over the weekend and came upon a reference to "CableCard," a term that was pretty hot just a year or two ago and signified big things for the future. The last time I actually saw a reference to CableCard was when I bought my high-definition set, and the somewhat corny sales guy was actually trying to suggest that CableCard was a big-selling feature. What a dope!

We Americans aren't exactly notorious for our patience. But the key question for imarketers and agencies is, what effect does this "press-a-button-and-something-instantly-happens" conditioning have on the user experiences we must design in order to help advertisers have an impact in the interactive medium?