According to an AP article citing data from comScore Inc., people are still in love with the internet. In fact, they love to watch videos on the internet. Furthermore, views of videos online experienced an ecstatic rate of growth in February -- they shot up 66% compared to the year-ago period. Incredible, right? And if you're a media company, you love the data, right?

Well, if you're Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), you love it. If you're a Disney (NYSE: DIS) or a General Electric (NYSE: GE), you would be of two minds about it. For you see, while people are watching videos, oftentimes they are doing it on a platform like Google's YouTube -- they aren't necessarily watching them at ABC.com. The data show that YouTube increased its video views by 15% in February 2008 versus February 2007, and that it captured one-third of the 10 billion video views that occurred in February of this year. Amazing. But sites like ABC.com captured much, much less of those views -- that site, in fact, had a measly 1% share of the pie.

Major content players want surfing eyeballs to come to their sites so they can monetize their online libraries via methods of their own making. Media companies, simply put, still haven't figured out how to adapt to this new electronic entertainment economy, and they still haven't come to terms with YouTube. In an era of social networking and clip sharing, users love to copy content and upload it to sites like YouTube that are very easy and friendly to engage, thus bypassing the owners of such content. How does one fight this?

I recently met up with Suranga Chandratillake, the CEO of Blinkx (a video search engine). He always has something new to talk about, and this time was no different.

His firm has recently launched BBTV, an online service that provides near TV quality. "We have blended our service with the advantages of the web," said Chandratillake. "For example, if you want to know more about an actor, you can click his or her name on a digital transcript and get a profile. This is possible because of our speech translation technology."

Basically, this can be an innovative way to monetize video, which so far has been a tough thing to do.

OK, but isn't high-quality video bandwidth heavy? That's true. However, BBTV uses the power of peer-to-peer networking, which is fairly cost-effective.

To get things rolling, BBTV has a variety of indie films from Dogwoof on the site. "We have more than 250 content partners at Blinkx," said Chandratillake, "and we plan to leverage them on BBTV. We want to be the place for hard-to-get quality content."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube continues to gain visitors. It competitors have to be dismayed. Why bother posting video content at all when YouTube owns the market.

According to comScore, YouTube had a 34.3% share of all videos watched in the U.S. during January, an improvement of 1.7 share points over the previous month.

The competition barely registered. AOL, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), and Disney (NYSE: DIS) had embarrassing share figures, none posting a figure better than 3.2%.

Visitors to Google video sites spent an average of almost 110 minutes per viewer. No other large internet site was above 33 minutes.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

DivX, Inc. (Nasdaq: DIVX), which develops video applications, thought it could succeed in the topsy-turvey web business. So, in late 2006, the company launched Stage6.com.

Well, for the most part, it's not as easy as it looks and now DivX is closing down the site. Interestingly enough, DivX wasn't able to find a buyer for the property.

What happened? Well, I had a chance to interview Chase Norlin, who operates Pixsy (an online search engine). According to him:

"Stage6 likely needed a sugar-daddy to support operations going forward (e.g. acquirer with resources or large capital raise). Given the popularity of the service and the high quality of their streams, they probably had a significant bandwidth bill without the monetization to support that in the short term. Additionally, legal issues around copyrighted material may have added to the decision."

One of my favorite novelists is Robin Cook. He is the pioneer of the medical thriller genre – with perhaps his most well-known title being Coma. In all, he has written 25 NY Times bestsellers.

Now he is moving to the online world. That is, Cook is teaming up with Vuguru, which is Michael Eisner's digital movie studio. Cyber Group Animation is also involved.

Basically, there will be a prequel – on the web and mobile – for Cook's upcoming work, Foreign Body. The debut will be on May 27, 2008. And, yes, I certainly look forward to it.

To get some perspective on all this, I interviewed Chase Norlin, who is the CEO of Pixsy (an online video search company). According to him:

"Perhaps the most notable aspect of this deal is the continued progress of the 'made-for-Internet' programming model, which reflects the inherent cost efficiencies of content production for this medium and the potential for a significant web-wide distribution impact. Tying this into the launch of a new book is a unique Hollywood-esque tie-in that makes a lot of sense."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) movie network HBO will begin testing an online video service. The new project would allow network subscribers to watch programming on their PCs or download them to watch later. According to The Wall Street Journal, "HBO is starting a trial of the service, called HBO Broadband, in Green Bay, Wis., the network says, and could roll it out more widely later this year."

While HBO's brand is well-known among cable subscribers, it is difficult to predict whether this will translate into a large audience online. The amount of premium content available over the internet is growing rapidly as companies like Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) enter the industry. In a field this crowded, newer competitors may have trouble finding audiences.

HBO does have one distinct advantage. Many of the programs on the network are produced for its viewers and are not available elsewhere. This large amount of original content may draw a substantial audience for the new distribution channel.

But the field is getting crowded.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

So far this year, online video is making a big mark. Just look at the Iowa caucuses, where voters posted their efforts on YouTube and then spread them across social networks like MySpace and Facebook. So what else might we see in 2008 for online video?

Well, I had a chance to interview Chase Norlin, who is the CEO of Pixsy (an online video company). According to him:

1. Expect to see continued enforcement by copyright holders over their online video assets; this will drive wider adoption of DRM and licensing platforms.

2. The online video ad category is growing but not at the pace to support the multitude of companies pursuing this market, and a shakeout is therefore likely.

3. More consolidation in the online video space and all other key internet categories.

4. Continued growth in the semipro video publishing market as content producers create and distribute their material in a more cost-effective manner than traditional outlets.

5. More unique video programming, created for the web, making its way to television.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

I'm definitely looking forward to the "Dexter" finale this weekend. The Showtime Networks series is about a serial killer -- who uses his killing talents to snuff other serial killers.

Yes, it's not a typical show. So, maybe that's why the producers are going to do something creative; that is, they have partnered with Meebo to develop a Web 2.0 experience.

So, Dexter fans can chat -- with AIM, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), MSN and so on -- with executive producers and the talent after the finale.

I had a chance to interview Chase Norlin, who is the CEO of Pixsy (a video search engine), who says:

"This makes perfect sense for Meebo to be in the private label business with instant messaging as the primary application, and certainly seems to be a complement to Showtime Networks' goals. No doubt, video integration into instant messaging applications stands to be a significant trend. Although, in the case of Meebo, I think they will eventually have to offer broader functionality in their private label product in order to win more distribution partners."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Studios are up to something -- and it sounds like an attack on Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes online audio and video store. After breaking ties with Apple this past summer and no longer supplying its content to the iTunes store, NBC is probably looking for some way to deliver its shows in ways that go beyond mere broadcast television.

Without access to iTunes, NBC risks losing those many viewers who no longer watch much regular television, zap through commercials with their DVRs when they do, and get their video fixes via websites.

So, NBC partners with SanDisk, a company known for making flash computer storage and for being the second-largest seller in the world of digital music players (behind Apple). But here's the catch: the new partnership is about delivering NBC's content to set-top boxes meant for regular television viewing. Huh? Is NBC just looking for some partnership -- any partnership -- so viewers won't forget about its programming?

What happened to the Hulu deal, which sounded more like an iTunes competitor rather than the same old model of delivering content via set-top boxes to customer's television sets? Apparently nothing. Is NBC becoming desperate? Some signs point to yes. Was Apple wise to treat its former content partner like a black sheep? Most signs point to yes.

As of the end of November, internet rating form comScore concluded that Google, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube online video sharing service led all the U.S. online video competition, holding a 27.6% market share in September. It's no surprise -- if I were to ask 10 people where they could go to watch video on the web, my hunch is that at least 9 would say YouTube.

Was YouTube worth the billion-plus that Google paid for it? First-mover advantage is everything, and if Google can find a workable strategy to monetize the site, then most likely the $1.65 billion price tag won't look like very much. comScore also stated that Google-owned sites ranked as the top U.S. video property. In September, there were 2.6 billion videos viewed. 2.5 billion of those were via YouTube. I suspect the other 0.1 billion came courtesy of Google Video.

Coming in behind Google in September was News Corp's (NYSE: NWS) Fox Interactive Media, which includes MySpace, and Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), which saw 387 million and 381 million videos viewed, respectively. Is online video beginning to compete more and more with broadcast television? It's not too hard to let the cat out of the bag with that statement, since over 9 billion videos were viewed online in September. An estimated 75% of American internet users participated in all that viewing. Yes, I would say that is competition.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) shares are trading higher today after the company announced this morning that it has signed an online content deal with Sony BMG, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE). The deal would allow people to upload files with music or video content by Sony BMG artists to Yahoo. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but YHOO said that Sony BMG would receive a cut of advertising revenue. If you think that Yahoo!, won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on the stock.

After hitting a one-year high of $34.08 in October, the stock has declined over the past month. YHOO opened this morning at $26.93. So far today the stock has hit a low of $26.85 and a high of $27.25. As of 11:05, YHOO is trading at $27.09, up 35 cents (1.3%). The chart for YHOO looks bullish but deteriorating, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.

According to today's U.K. Guardian, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been meeting with American Idol guru Simon Fuller about partnering on an internet project that he says is a "big idea on a global scale." While no details were disclosed, Fuller compared the impact of the project to that of iTunes on the music industry.

My first thought was that Google was going into original programming, for which Fuller has been a cash machine. However, a couple of shows, even if very successful, do not the foundations of entertainment shake. Google has also crapped out on a pay-per-view models, and I'd be surprised if that resurfaced. With its purchase of YouTube, though, it owns the mother of all footprints in online video.

As a WAG, perhaps the plan might be more along these lines: A producer creates a show, partners with Google to market it for internet delivery. The show is delivered with advertising content via the Google/YouTube network. For each viewing, advertisers pay a fixed rate, and Google divvies up the ad revenue with the producer. In essence, Google replaces the television network's role, using its ubiquitousness to market content to those it identifies as the most likely to view.

Any plans coming from the Google/Simon confab need to be taken seriously. They are, after all, two American Idols.

Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) has announced a new online video sharing and storage service. The new service, aptly -- and boringly -- named "Best Buy Video Sharing," is being launched in partnership with online hosting company Mydeo (which I suppose is a play on "My Video").

This new service must be geared toward customers who would utilize Best Buy for Business, the retailer's division that markets itself towards small- and medium-sized businesses. I say this because the cost of this new video sharing service -- $6.97 for 100 minutes of video hosting to start -- can't really compete with consumer-level services like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s YouTube and Google Video, which are free.

But then again, many businesses have training needs and other unique needs that would require secure video hosting with long lengths (an hour or more), and this service would appear to be perfect for those needs. However, if Best Buy is trying to crack into the video content consumer distribution business, I fail to see what the point is. Will consumers readily pay for something when the competition gives it away for free? Is history holds, then most likely they will not.

Best Buy should market this new service to the business customer and de-emphasize it to the standard consumer. Whether it does this is anyone's guess.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) had always known its key focus: do whatever is possible to leverage the operating system.

Well, something similar is happening to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). The company realizes that when it needs results, it should focus on its advertising machine.

So it's no surprise that the company is adding YouTube videos to the Google AdSense network. There will be both banner and text ads. What's more, it should be an additional source of income for Google's many Web publishers.

Actually, I tried out the system – and it is pretty easy to use (what Google service isn't?) You can see an example at the top left of this post.

What's more, I talked to Chase Norlin about it. He is the CEO and founder of Pixsy (a video search engine). According to him:

"Google acquired YouTube not necessarily for their huge destination site audience, but because they now have the ultimate media aggregation tool for consumer, semipro, and professional content providers. Once the licensing issues are sorted out, Google will have a solid weapon in the content distribution market via AdSense. The challenge, of course, will be to equal or exceed the existing monetization capabilities of the AdSense network."

True, Revver doesn't have the mega brand of Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube. However, the site has made some online video creators happy; that is, $1 million has been distributed to them.

You see, Revver allows its users to share in revenues generated from advertisements.

True, it's not a lot of money. But keep in mind that the online video market is still in the emerging stages.