With more than 100,000 hours of content being uploaded to YouTube every day, it's no secret that the competition is fierce for brands trying to get views and engagement for their videos. Many brands have tried creating an audience for their videos through TV buys, hoping that they'll have an easier time breaking through the clutter. Others have redirected budget away from display banners in favor of native ads and sponsored stories, hoping for higher-click through rates and engagement. But are these the best strategies or the smartest investments? Is there a better (and proven) way to help a video …

Before leaving for Italy on vacation this past summer, I loaded up my iPad and Kindle Fire with videos to watch while abroad. My media traveled with me. I didn't have to declare any of it at the border. It was convenient to have what I wanted to watch right there with me. Is this media pack-and-go the future or a continuation of the past? T

We all know that channels like Twitter and Facebook enable quick response and interaction between brands and their consumers. Today brands are finding ways to be charming, sarcastic, and irreverent; they're personalizing their communications, and successfully so. After all, when a company takes the time to write a response to someone's tweet or Facebook post, it can demonstrate the brand as having a personality - a critical feature of social channels. Yet as clever as these examples are, there are ways that we can go further. Today we're seeing the emergence of responsive video, broadening the channels in which brands …

How quickly YouTube has gone from undesirable to the belle of the ball remains one of the year's stories. With the success of Machinima - which raised a mammoth $35 million round by many including Google - it was a matter of time before money poured into the sector from institutional and strategic investors via content networks aggregating audiences across existing YouTube channels. Maker Studios is raising $40 million from Time Warner. Not to be outdone, Fullscreen is courting Bertelsmann. Before it's said and done, I expect a lot more activity: investment, consolidation and acquisition.

Benchmark Capital is a venture capital firm that has had particular success in investing in online marketplaces such as eBay, OpenTable, Yelp, Zillow and Uber. Based on the successes and failures of these companies, Benchmark has created a philosophy on which markets are susceptible to birthing successful online marketplaces, and general partner Bill Gurley recently published its methodology online. So, is the online video advertising industry likely to produce a successful marketplace with the ad exchange? According to Benchmark Capital's methodology, the answer is yes, and I have shared my analysis below:

The 2012 election season has come and gone, and those selling digital video advertising are likely still catching their breath. It was a whirlwind season that saw political advertisers on the national, state and regional levels heavily invest in digital, so much so that demand and corresponding CPMs were increasing right up to Election Day.

A month ago we looked at how YouTube went from the industry pariah to belle of the ball. Last week comScore released its latest figures, showing that on average video viewers are watching nearly 400 minutes of content each month on YouTube's site -- prompting me to wonder if anything will ever derail the juggernaut. Today, we look at some reasons why YouTube will stay on top.

We are all incredibly relieved that one aspect of video is now on a hiatus. The election is over and so too are those annoying political ads. Could the networks squeeze any more commercials out of those time slots? No more political ads for a while, and I approve this message! So now it's time for marketers to turn their focus back to video for communicating with their own constituents: customers and potential customers.

For the 15th anniversary of the Archive of American Television, the publisher of the Primetime Emmy Awards printed program asked me to contribute a one-pager on the Archive's first 15 years. I'd like to share the heart of it with everyone out there who wants to make great television. How do you distill the wisdom from more than 700 longform interviews, in 2,500-plus hours to-date of the life stories of television's greatest professionals? You stand back and let the interviewees speak for themselves. Here's what we've learned about becoming a TV legend:

Federated Media (FM) announced layoffs last week, including its 24-person direct sales force. With CEO Deanna Brown betting the company's future on "native advertising" and "programmatic buying," some think that native advertising won't be enough to save publishers' bacon.