I've recently written about how YouTube went from pariah to the only game in town, arguing that the site will only get stronger in years to come. Seeing video content producers large and small embrace YouTube as the centerpiece of their distribution strategy makes a lot of sense, but some caution and common sense would be appropriate.

There has always been an unnamed conflict of interest within the historic television business model, because a program's ratings stand in as a surrogate for commercial ratings -- which are never actually known. So as traditional TV networks spend money and use technology to "drive viewers" to programs, the old model says that is good for advertisers. In fact, it is mostly good for TV programmers and distributors because they can charge more (more impressions = more revenue against a negotiated CPM).

What's the biggest yearly event for digital advertising? In digital video, most people will say it's the Newfronts. For the creative minds, it's Cannes. Advertising Week and Internet Week will more than likely get a mention here or there. But there's one show that likely won't get a lot of votes, yet may soon overshadow all of the aforementioned events in importance to the digital video ad community: CES.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Etsy, Instagram -- we refer to sites like these as social. Yet YouTube, despite its massive popularity, doesn't make it into that category very often -- presumably because it's video-based. Similarly, despite being the world's second largest search engine, it's infrequently discussed as part of the SEO ecosystem. But the utility and social profile of YouTube specifically, and digital video in general, are about to get a big boost -- largely due to a variety of second-generation tools that have been a long time coming. In the coming year, these tools will serve to reinvigorate digital video …

With Hulu's founding CEO Jason Kilar resigning and planning to leave the company in the next three months, rumors abound about his and the company's future.

Reading about journalist Andrew Sullivan's decision to fly solo, I couldn't help but think of how in corporate finance, we go through alternating periods of consolidation (through mergers and acquisitions) and separation (through spin-offs, divestments and sales). Executives and bankers basically flip-flop their arguments to convince shareholders that it all makes sense (and to be fair, sometimes it does), but it's bizarre: how could 1+1=3 in one year and then 2-1=4 the next? In any case, similarly, the media world sees a pattern of talent getting tired of working for Big Media and striking out on its own, and talent …

"What is a real, successful YouTube view?" This is a question we are asked by clients all the time. Unfortunately - like most other online measurement questions - there isn't one standard answer that has been largely adopted by the industry.