I have not seen the user features for the upcoming clickable television launches. I can't say whether they will be exactly like the technologies trialed in the early part of this decade. But what I am hoping is that soon clickable television will leverage the Internet in a way that was not possible 10 years ago.

Imagine turning the water faucet on and never being able to turn it off. Eventually, a few things tend to happen. You get wet. Your stuff gets wet. If you're in an apartment and you live above people, the people below you get wet. Their stuff gets wet. You get the picture. To avoid drowning, the best way, of course, is to turn off that water, but, alas, you can't. It just keeps coming.

Viewership of online video is up, reports NielsenCo.'s July 2009 "VideoCensus", quoting a 14.2% increase from last year to nearly 136 million unique viewers. That's great news for the online advertising industry, but it begs the question -- if usage is increasing, why isn't the money following? Perhaps because the technology and standardization process just isn't there yet. In short, though video ads in general are increasing, the adoption rate is still lagging.

The spotlight today from the traditional side of advertising is on set-top-box ratings; although the opportunity, I believe, comes from technology that could link TV content to the Internet (by way of the remote control click).

Last week, Jay-Z released his 11th album, "The Blueprint 3." The first single off the album was called D.O.A: "Death of Auto-Tune." The rock-influenced track takes to task the Auto-Tune audio processing technology that many have criticized as overused in the genre. Right now, I think I'm feeling a little like Jay-Z. We have a trend in online media that needs to be brought to task, discussed and potentially "killed" -- that trend being auto-play video. So at the risk of not being "politically correct" (check the song lyrics), let's talk about why we should think about pronouncing auto-play D.O.A.

I look at TV the same way I look at any product: be it hard goods or a digital download, it is ultimately the consumer that drives sales. The cable and telco companies are gatekeepers to digital products (TV, Internet, mobile, etc.) and when I look at their distribution system, it reminds me of how the big-box business model works.

Consider the growing trend of video ad networks that offer a technology solution that promises to aggregate video ad fill from that network and also from other networks -- many times at no cost to the publisher. From the publisher's standpoint it may sound like a panacea - increased fill of unsold video inventory, only one system to manage, and in some cases, the ability to optimize by CPM. In practice, though, there could be potential challenges with this approach.

I've often found that communicating the value of different types of ad units to clients is almost as challenging as the back end technology work that goes into creating the units themselves. Each campaign is different, and each targeted audience calls for a new mix in both message and presentation. I like to think of the wide variety of available ad units in terms of sushi: There are lots of different styles, but only a few key families (i.e., sashimi, nigiri, rolls).This sushi analogy can be useful in helping clients to plan campaigns. Instead of presenting clients that are less …

Wherever I go, someone is asking me about TV Everywhere. It is unquestionably the topic of the year in the digital media space. >When I refer to TV Everywhere I mean premium content, like television series and feature films, available anywhere, at any time, and on any device. Obviously, this concept brings an enormous potential upside for content providers. But the technical challenges TV Everywhere presents are pretty enormous themselves. Here are five central issues a premium content holder needs to nail down in order to create a viable TV Everywhere solution:

Internet video distribution today seems like the inevitable path media companies are going to take in order to ensure their content gets to consumers. But big media needs to figure out a way to operate (for at least the next five to seven years) with one foot firmly planted in today's TV distribution platform, while incubating their Internet audiences.