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.

My two most recent Online Video Insider pieces focused on the world of media exchanges/RTB (real-time bidding/buying), sometimes called "programmatic buying." The first is a primer detailing what this is, while the second provides an analysis of what this means for T/V (television/video). This will look at the glossary of new language and standards programmatic buying uses to describe and evaluate online video advertising capabilities. If these concepts were applied to traditional, linear TV, what would it tell us? Here are four to begin with:

Advertisers planning on investing millions of dollars in the biggest advertising event of the year may be missing out on one critical metric. Our recent study has found that campaigns that promote content prior to game day generate, on average, nearly 600% more views than those that don't. As of last year, 20 advertisers waited until game day to release assets, missing out on millions of potential views. With this information in mind, as advertisers are planning Super Bowl strategies to stretch budgets as best they can, they need to decide what success means for their Super Bowl programs:

Countless studies have shown growth for mobile video, both in tablets and smartphones. For instance, eMarketer forecasts double-digit growth for video consumption among smartphone users through 2015. And a recent study from Keynote Competitive Research showed that 76% of tablet users watch video on their devices. But while user consumption is seeing rapid growth, it's still unclear what role brands and advertisers will play in mobile video.