Some rants are so big they take two blog posts to handle. See yesterday's post for the warm up. Such is my experience with mobile TV. And I do mean "experience." I literally have had access to dedicated mobile video services and live mobile TV from the days they were first offered. For months I kept with me the first Verizon VCast 3G phones back when they had an antenna. I did the same with the first iterations of Sprint TV on 3G (again VOD) and the Qualcomm FloTV units from Verizon and AT&T. I have even had review …

Don't get me started. When news hit last week that a consortium of broadcasters planned to equip 20 major markets to service mobile digital TV, commentators reiterated that old dream of "TV in your hand." The Mobile Content Venture claims it will cover almost 40% of the U.S. population with free-to-consumer digital channels to their phones by the end of 2011. As someone who has tested and covered the jagged, mostly unsuccessful roll-out of live mobile TV service for several years, who has had this capability on a number of review phones I have covered around for months at a …

It seemed to take forever for 60 Minutes to get around to deploying much of a Web strategy, so it is heartening to see CBS ride the crest of a breaking trend to release a branded iPad app for the Sunday night institution. 60 Minutes often feels longer in the tooth than Andy Rooney is in eyebrows, and part of that creakiness gets transferred to the app. In this case, however, that may not be an altogether bad thing. According to the promotion, this is "the first prime time news magazine to have its own standalone application for the hand-held …

We all know video advertising has considerable brand impact online relative to other digital ad units, but we still don't know much about what that richer media experience actually moved someone to do. Well, there are post-campaign branding effects studies of course that can parse out the kinds of lifts in brand reputation or purchase intent a campaign had on users, but those metrics come well after most campaigns end. Jivox is introducing one ad model and analytics tool today that tries to address the issue.

File this one under 'What's Next? Their Own Web Browser?" Amazon.com announced this week the opening of Amazon Studios, a development house where filmmakers and writers can submit scripts and test films to get awards, feedback and consideration for Hollywood development deals. The little film project is working with a fund of $2.7 million that can be awarded to submissions made through 2011. The studio has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. Pictures for the projects deemed worthy of advancement.

Meredith and Matt have new competition for those AM eyeballs this morning from Wallstrip alumnus Lindsay Campbell. As part of its planned explosion of programmed video content AOL issued its first episode of AOL Daybreak. The two-minute video show purports to be a "light-hearted" round-up of headlines. Because there isn't enough perky and light in morning programming.

It bears remembering that online video is not just a guy thing ... not by a long shot. Have you seen the number of video views that make-up and beauty tips get on YouTube? What celebrity news clips can do to traffic stats at any lifestyle or women's magazine site? While video hubs such as Break.com and Metacafe chase that 18-34-year-old male demo with entertainment, gaming and babes, the fairer gender is snacking on video just as voraciously. To wit: the site SheKnows claims to have generated 18.72 million video views in September to become one of the leading video …

Like every other gamer in the known universe, I got my copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops this week. Unlike my younger game fans, I have a job that pretty much accounts for my waking hours during the week. As I look forward to this weekend, that unopened green game box beckons. Time for some serious killing. And to be frank, that will be the first time my Xbox has been used for a game in quite a while.

Because Apple doesn't seem to have taken enough bites out of every market it deems fit to enter, we get word today from video metrics firm Visible Measures that Jobs and co. are also supping on social video. According to VM, Apple's online promotional videos have a 55% "Share of Choice" in the mobile technology category. "Share of Choice" (dare we call this "SOC"?) is a new metric (apparently we need more) the company introduced today that indicates brand preference within a given category of shared video. Apple's videos for FaceTime, the new Nano and iPod gaming have been driving …

What makes a viral video, well, viral? One of the things many of the viral hits have in common, Visible Measures' CMO Matt Cutler told me once, is the "how'd-they-do-that?" quality. Whether it is the CGI dancing babies or the subway stairwell turned into a piano keyboard or Roger Federer's William Tell tennis stroke bit, many of the viral ad hits make the viewer wonder what it took to pull that off? Was that real? And so we get the weird follow-up "making-of" videos attached to viral hits. But in most cases, the can-you-believe-it?" quality in the video is just …