Recent headlines regarding the online video industry have been contradictory, to say the least. One day, Hulu is the greatest thing for online advertising since the 468; the next it's time to bring out the pay-per-view model. There is no doubt that long-form video has a robust future on the Web, but for that future to be advertising-supported, a critical element needs to be thrown in the advertising mix: data.

Last week I had the pleasure of spending time with an agency team that represents a worldwide consumer packaged goods brand. The occasion? The group was in the early stages of planning its online video initiatives for the year ahead. Therefore, the team was taking meetings with vendors on its initial consideration list.

For decades, marketers have been warned of the short attention span of their audience -- and conventional wisdom says that as competition for attention got stronger, that attention spans would get shorter. However, the way we consume content online is changing this. The rise of Hulu and other network sites has had the effect of normalizing the watching of long-form video online.

We all are probably somewhat overwhelmed by the number of studies defining consumer behavior on the Web. However, just this month two reports were published, that when looked at together, tell a compelling story about how online behavior has changed pretty dramatically within the last year.

Amidst the flurry of recent dialogue around online video economics, exciting new ad units and new lanes in Vivaki's Pool, one can't help but feel the momentum that the industry is actually, finally... moving forward from the 1.0 world of cutdown TVC pre-roll -- at least that's the hope. Not that we'll see the percentage of standard pre-rolls actually decrease in the next 6-9 months, but there's new energy out there that the space is moving forward. The question is, will the creative messaging and the economics evolve to make the business make sense for buyers, sellers and marketers as …

Many publishers of local TV Web sites seem uneasy about the shift to online video advertising, fearing it will steal broadcast dollars. I believe, however, that local TV publishers are in the best position to move to online video advertising.

Barry Diller -- whose IAC brand oversees businesses that have both subscriber and advertising-based models -- delivered a highly controversial keynote at the Advertising 2.0 Conference last week, where he called the advertising-only model unsustainable for the Web. What was particularly interesting was his comment that the iPhone and its App Store is the reason why he has so much faith in the paid model.Why? A few flicks of a finger and your content or software is delivered instantly, and your account is debited or billed. Diller believes that the success of the paid Web will be largely ushered along …

Cisco released a report on Tuesday that predicts global Internet traffic will grow four times larger between 2009 and 2013, and that a significant cause of this growth will be the rise in online video traffic (including streaming, live video, video on demand, and video conferencing), which by 2013 will be 60% of total Internet traffic.

The buzz is everywhere -- in the blogosphere, on industry panels, and even at lunch with colleagues: Should Hulu go subscription? Is a subscription model coming to Web video, and soon? Well, let's look at what makes a subscription model work, why consumers (en masse) sign up for subscriptions, and see if we can figure out whether a subscription model makes sense for Internet-delivered television today.

Go ahead and Bing the phrase "ad networks are bad." You'll see 33,300,000 results. Now, Bing "ad networks are good." As you were expecting, far fewer results. Right? No. 86,300,000 results with the words "ad networks" and "good" in close proximity. Why? Because although it is in vogue to trash the ad network business, networks play a crucial role in the advertiser/publisher ecosystem. This is particularly true in the video space.