Retransmission, in my opinion, has injected much needed liquidity into the content marketplace. Currently broadcast groups are counting on retrans fees to make up for the advertising slide. This newfound cash infusion from content, however, could also be used as a bargaining chip to launch future services. Broadcasters should not just focus on the monetary gains of retrans, but also look to use this bargaining chip to forge new technical and data partnerships with cable companies.

Thanks to a convergence of technology and consumer habits, both fueled by the advancements of the 21st century, there is a growing trend among digital advertisers to purchase their key audience rather than buying specific destination media -- which is a positive development for marketers.

Look around: it's no longer the Wild West out there. Yesterday's TV Everywhere experiments and pilot programs are morphing into today's company-wide business priorities for cable providers. Digital delivery of premium video content is a real business, one that is generating real money for media companies. Those same companies need to get together with cable operators and other stakeholders to develop a uniform content identification standard.

I first heard the phrase "Syndicated Video Economy" while eating lunch with Will Richmond, the founder of VideoNuze. We were discussing how the distributed power of the Web would eventually produce many large online video businesses. While this turned out be true, a black market has also emerged. The syndicated video black market is dominated by a small number of video syndication firms, ad networks and tier-three publishers, all of which appear to be both codependent and increasingly unscrupulous.

As you know, delivering on the promise of multiplatform video (TV Everywhere being one example) presents many opportunities and challenges. Time-based metadata is one of several foundations that can help capitalize on this opportunity, in addition to things like authentication, content identification and adaptive bit-rate streaming.

If you're reading this, you're probably a big proponent of online video. I am, too. But ask yourself one question: if NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX took every minute of programming in their archives and published it online, what would be the result?

Despite all these new media opportunities, sometimes it feels like we are back inside the Internet bubble. Like shuffling cards in a deck. Hearts, we go for audience and brand awareness. Spades, we focus on ROI. Add mobile into the mix, and the ability to build an audience across multiple devices never seemed so easy. Akin to the bubble years, "audience" today seems to validate every new technology even when there is no obvious business model.

Online, video transforms static content into something equally or more engaging than an app. An entirely new class of apps is emerging that is video-enabled.

Metadata is simply data about data. While it sounds really boring, metadata is the key to unlocking exponential growth in viewership, discovery and monetization opportunities for premium video content.

When the online video market began to take hold in 2005, many publishers grappled with the proper way to monetize the emerging online video-watching trend. It wasn't easy, and for the last couple of years there was a question whether it was even possible. Yet, a recent study published by eMarketer shows that while overall online ad sales declined in 2009, online video ad sales grew 50% in 2009, and are poised to grow another 50% in 2010.