Just as it's becoming easier to filter out spam e-mail (my free Gmail account filters out nearly all spam e-mail: thanks Google!), spam is cropping up on another important internet destination: YouTube and Google Videos. The way it works is that the spammer will add a list of popular keywords to a video to get hits. According to Wall Street Journal [subscription required], searching for popular videogame devices such as Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo and PSP on Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) YouTube returned "a nine-minute promotional clip for Argentine tourism, steamy shots of fashion models, footage of a parade in Germany, and an apparently pirated clip of a concert by the band Queen."

Most disturbingly, YouTube is likely to become a common place to promote get-rich-quick schemes and other "products" likely to be scams. For example, the Journal brings a clip titled "Hot Blonde Tells You How She Wants to...," which was nothing but, of course. The clip, which directed some 500,000 users so far to a "How to Make Buckets of Cash" site, is now No. 6 on the "Top 10" list on Google Video. More than 100 misleading keywords were attached to the clip, "including sexually explicit terms and Harry Potter."

A few weeks ago, I reported on a bulletin board company that was using YouTube to promote its stock to investors. A chart of the recent performance of the stock shows that the video coincided with a pump and dump of the company's shares.

Hopefully, users will be smart enough to ignore the spam and give it low ratings so that others are less likely to view it.

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) continues to push the boundaries of traditional advertising models, and I think it's just smashed past another one. I never thought I'd see the day when major advertisers like Coca-Cola Co.'s (NYSE:KO) Coke would agree to submit ads that could be attached to content outside its control. But hey, now it's happened.

Google Video is now testing advertisements on user-generated content (UGC) uploaded to Google Video. Google says that Coke has even responded with a made-for-content advertising in order to participate in the test -- a first for a major brand to actually attach itself and its brand name to content created by, gasp, consumers.

This bodes incredibly well for the future of Google's YouTube subsidiary, as the major sticking point in that acquisition was the large looming question on how Google was going to make money on the property without driving away YouTube's existing customer base. If Google can prove with this test that it can get large advertisers to commit to marketing themselves on UGC the YouTube extravaganza may just be the start of a Google-led advertising revolution.

When Rupert Murdoch's News. Corp purchased the incredibly-popular MySpace.com social networking portal, the global media behemoth promised not to distract the founders from what they do best -- provide a great environment for a certain age demographic. They said they would let MySpace continue to be the virtual "mall hangout" for millions.

So far, that has held true, and of course, News Corp. wants to have advertising displayed all over the social website to cash in on those lucrative and captive-audience ad dollars. To that tune, Google signed a rather high-profile deal with MySpace just a few weeks ago worth $900 million to do just that. Off to the races we all go now...

But are there signs of change at MySpace lurking beneath the proverbial covers? Recently, after some worry-filled days and nights, the MySpace laid-back, but intensely-focused, culture was uprooted as its headquarters was moved from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills, where News Corp. was consolidating its Internet properties. Tom Anderson -- co-founder of MySpace -- is now going through regular corporate drills like budget reviews and executive meetings.

MySpace is also about to roll out enhanced photo and video-sharing capabilities that will allow the site to complete with social photo-sharing and tagging communities like Yahoo!'s Flickr and YouTube -- two of the web's most popular sites for sharing photos and videos, respectively. Will MySpace be able to integrate advertising in such a way that it does not overwhelm and scare off its target market of teens and young adults? That remains to be seen. If it can, then Yahoo! and others may need to watch out. The community of the future may not be on Yahoo!'s immensely-popular portal, but on MySpace.

I had lunch with two attorneys last week (the good news was that they paid -- and it was a sushi restaurant). One of the attorneys said: "Hey, Google has video now. I want to see if I can find some Van Halen music videos."

Yes, my attorney friends are not of the MySpace generation. I said, "Actually, Google has had video for quite some time."

"Oh," he said. "I thought it came out today because the menu on the top of the front page changed."

That was certainly correct. One of the most valuable pieces of Internet real estate had an adjustment last week. The links to Froogle and Groups are now gone. In its place is "Video New!"

Basically, this is a declaration of war against YouTube, an upstart that now dominates online video. Hitwise, which measures and analyzes Web traffic, looked at the impact of the menu change. Of course, Google Video saw a doubling of traffic.

As I noted in a recent piece for BloggingStocks.com, Google is leveraging its huge distribution -- such as AdSense -- to take on YouTube, as seen with its recent deal with MTV. Basically, online video looks like the next hyper-growth market for advertising. And it's something Google must win at all costs.

Here's the Hitwise's chart on the spike in traffic for Google Video:

Tom Taulli is the author of a variety of books, such as The Complete M&A Handbook (Random House) and operates InvestorOffering.com.