Geoff Ramsey is uniquely positioned to talk about advertising and video as the CEO of eMarketer, the research and analysis firm that covers digital marketing and media, and whom I occasionally use as the poster child for how forecasts are always off (hopefully he also has a sense of humor). Last summer, Ramsey spoke to Beet TV and gave hope to content creators by noting "the big opportunity for marketers is to create 'useful' content. Marketers need to be in the content business."

With the dust only just beginning to settle from Netflix's recent mad, back-and-forth scramble of changes to its business model, it's a good time to ask where the entertainment service might end up in the long run. Here are three possible "end games" (if there is such a thing as an end game in the dynamic world of media):

Recently, there's been a lot of debate surrounding the long-awaited debut of Target Rating Points (TRPs) into the online world, courtesy of Nielsen's Campaign Ratings, which seek to validate impression delivery by age and sex. On one side, there's recognition that TRPs finally allow big brand TV advertisers a more apples-to-apples comparison between offline and digital metrics. Dissenters, on the other hand, argue that TRPs are a lazy metric, given the abundance of superior online measures already available. Arguments aside, there's no doubt that the introduction of online TRPs is a major step to bridging the gap between the estimated …

Last week marked the 50th anniversary of the premiere of "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Naturally, there were outpourings of love from all corners of the blogosphere -- particularly from contemporary TV comedy writers who insist that they were inspired as kids by the smart writing of the series. I tend to believe it. There's no doubt that the series had a level of character-driven comic sophistication that was missing from a lot of television at the time. Was it a paradigm shift in television comedy? Maybe. We can certainly see the DNA of the series in many of the …

According to Accustream, online video will generate $5.6 billion in 2011. That figure includes in-page video campaigns; instream (pre-, post-, and mid-roll) ads; paid viral placements; overlays; and podcasting. The lion's share -- or 59% -- will come from in-banner placement. Raise your hand if you're surprised.

In the mid '90s, webmasters started to optimize their site so that when a search engine had sent its "spider" to crawl the page, data would be properly extracted and visible to users proactively searching for it. That was SEO. 15 years after, people still use search, true -- but not as much as they used to, and in my opinion, will barely do so in the future. The world is transforming from actively pursuing to passively discovering. People might search for an article or a video, but then discovery vehicles will get the user to bounce from one piece …

Today, independent Web series creators enjoy limitless creative freedom. They have the ability to create whatever they'd like and distribute it however they'd like, directly to their audiences. What's more, the Web series ecosystem of producers, agents, distributors, advertisers and publishers is much more established than it was a few years ago. We've gotten to the point where original Web series are achieving audience scale, advertisers are co-creating with Web series creators, networks are funding new productions, and content creators are extending their series to platforms like TV and film.

In the waning moments of Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, Brad Marchand, a wing on the Boston Bruins' second line, scored an empty net goal to make the score 4-0. It was a great moment for Marchand, but no analyst or expert was giving him sole credit for the Bruins' victory. Why then, in online advertising, do we reward a full commission to the media partner whose ad contributed the infamous "last click" before conversion? It's been common practice for years, and it needs to change.

Last week we looked at 5Min's history on the one-year anniversary of its sale to AOL. Today we mark the five-year anniversary of Google's acquisition of YouTube, announced October 9, 2006. Y