The out-of-home video market has heated up significantly over the last couple of years, and continues to accelerate. Scarcely a week goes by without a slew of announcements regarding new initiatives in the space. Indeed, it's becoming hard to think of places where one has no chance of encountering some sort of video-based media experience.

The other day, while convalescing from a cold, I caught an early morning Turner Classic Movie broadcast of "The Real Glory," a black-and-white, action and adventure film set in 1906, in the Philippines....

I had a very interesting conversation the other day with an industry veteran regarding the state of the television audience measurement industry. The conversation began innocently with concerns about set-top-box data, each of which I answered simply and directly. After 30 minutes, he had nothing more to say. When I suggested counting one in five anonymous households and mathematically inferring demographic attributes would be a more acceptable solution than projecting from a small panel, he became quite agitated. "The panel is the only acceptable solution," he cried. "No other approach allows us to taste the soup!"

The media marketplace is in a constant state of change. Off-platform, non-linear, broadband, DVRs and HD all create a vibrant yet unsettling advertising environment. The current standard of measurement needs to keep pace. Enter set-top-box data. Described by media experts as a new standard of measurement, set-top-box data resides in household cable boxes and tracks user activity. In this rush to market, it may be helpful to explore the definition of terms of measurement and address issues. Here is a short list to start the conversation.

We are going to geek out a bit today -- so skip this if you aren't interested in the wave of the future: 3D. In case you missed the article in The New York Times today, give it a read -- but it was all about the moves that studios are making toward the next generation of film-making in the third dimension. And yes, while many people still harbor visions of young Americans with bad crews cuts wearing impossibly silly paper glasses, this generation of technology for television is sleek, sophisticated and positively fantastic.

While at the 4 As conference in Orlando last week, I enjoyed a particularly fun conversation with a friend about one aspect of his TV viewing habits. My friend -- whom we shall call "K" -- records a daily sports program of an hour in length, which he watches the next day over breakfast. "How long do you think it takes me to watch it?" was his question to me. Well, since the program occupies an hour of total air time and he was watching on a DVR, I went for the obvious answer and assumed he went through the …

Last week, The Wall Street Journal printed an article by Bobby White entitled "The New Workplace Rules: No Video Watching." I was intrigued. Nielsen Online reports that weekday lunch hours (12 to 2 p.m.) are the heaviest for online video consumption, so the article said. The article proceeded to discuss bandwidth issues, computer traffic and possible companywide outages. All crippling vestiges of too much video snacking -- nonproductive visual calories from management's point of view. But what about the impact on broadband video as an advertising platform?

VOD is television. It may be the red-headed stepchild in the television family, but make no mistake about it -- it is still television. Why do agencies treat it differently? More importantly, if they make such a stink about the shortcomings in VOD, why are these same people not screaming bloody murder about local broadcast television? I am all for smart, articulate voices with digital experience entering the fray, but attacking VOD for not being Internet advertising is not very insightful. Ad-supported VOD is a set-top-box-based technology, and as such should be evaluated against other local television advertising opportunities.

1. That Matt Damon can do comedy; 2. That Ben Affleck looks good in blue spandex; 3. That Sarah is truly this generation's answer to Lucille Ball.

With yesterday's closure of the wall-to-wall TV and online ad channel Firebrand, maybe it's time to conclude that the ads-as-content model isn't likely to sustain itself on a grand scale (maybe more modest attempts can pull it off).