With no apologies to James Taylor...The end of the year is just a chance to look at the rear-view mirror and stare back at where you started a little while before. (For example, last year at this time, what did "vine" mean to you?)

The conventional wisdom would suppose most consumers wouldn't want to watch a full-length film on a smartphone. And that's true. But a pretty large minority of viewers already do.

The power of the Internet and online video might best be exhibited by a creating a massive hint without a whiff of pre-publicity. In 2013, Beyonce proved the power of her brand, and the power of online.

...What's your problem? The new online ad has been called every bad name in the book. Let's lighten up.

Unless you hang out at YouTube a lot, you wouldn't necessarily know the stars of that social media engine. But they have loyal fans, and they move product. Tubular Labs charted the top performers for 2013, like Miss Glamorazzi.

The Internet seems to make all of us feel compelled to form points of view about subjects that really aren't worth getting riled over. So it's amazing--and it's not--how worked up people can get over pre-roll ads. Calm down, everyone.

Online video has grown without much money, or much direction, or a great sense of purpose, but as audiences grow and advertising follows, it's likely quality advertising will need to be surrounded by quality content--or advertising itself will become the dominant content,

If you're thinking of cutting the cord there's a lot of help and encouragement out there. This Christmas season connected TV devices are way hot, pretty cheap and just seem.to be the flavor of the season. Help deciding what do is plentiful too.

Facebook tomorrow will position an auto-play video ad that will start playing as soon as the user accesses the site. If it's successful, the new ad position should be a big change in the ad world. But users have to be heard from, first.

Clever, quick and, most of the time, totally irrelevant. A Vine is there and then not. Over and done. They're not video clips. They're video quips. And suddenly, less than a year later, there are 40 million users.