And the web wars continue. Viacom (NYSE: VIA) issued a press release yesterday touting the success of its various Internet destinations. According to traffic numbers the release cited from comScore Media Metrics, the MTV Networks Music Group achieved an increase of well over 18% in terms of average monthly unique visitors during the first quarter of 2008 versus the year-ago period.

But what is really newsworthy about the release is that management of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, clearly wanted to rub its success in the face of its competitors. The release highlighted prominantly the fact that Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) Music's average monthly unique visitors saw a decline of well over 11% during the same period. News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace Music's number dropped 8%.

Viacom houses several major web brands -- MTV.com, VH1.com, Rockband.com, etc. And Sumner Redstone et al have made it clear in the past that a major part of the conglomerate's growth strategy is, and will continue to be, exploitation of the synergy between the web brands and the complementary broadcast brands -- each entity will feed eyeballs to the corresponding entity. Whenever you watch a Viacom platform -- for example, the reality shows on VH1 on Sunday nights -- you'll always see a plug for the companion Internet site. (All media companies do this, though, so it isn't unique to Viacom.)

By no means should any shareholder take this data to mean that Viacom is now king of the 'net. No, the media conglomerate isn't there yet. MySpace and Yahoo! are still immensely powerful in their own rights (like that even needed to be said).

But investors may well want to note that Viacom is keeping up efforts to broaden its presence on the web. So long as the company constantly changes its strategies as the tastes -- and keeps up with the attention spans of the target demographic -- then it will have a fighting chance to remain relevant in Web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 or whatever version we're in.

As aggressive as Viacom has been regarding building a web strategy, it can certainly get more aggressive. The press release offers up several examples of exclusive online content that served as drivers for the Q1 ratings -- the exclusive premiere of a Mariah Carey single, for example. Continue experimenting, Viacom. Try to think outside the box. The web is a tough battleground, and it will take all the innovative genes in your corporate DNA to beat the big guys of cyberspace.

Disclosure: I don't own shares in any of the companies mentioned here; positions can change at any time.

Yahoo! Music is expected to announce a new music-video player, Video 3.0, today, after launching the beta version yesterday.

The new video player is compatible with Mac and Firefox and will have more features as well as higher quality video playing. Video Player 3.0 will give users the flexible capability of of searching for videos and creating playlists while watching clips. This would allow for consecutive video watching.

While Apple Computer Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) charges $1.99 for music videos through its iTunes store, Yahoo! Inc.'s (NASDAQ:YHOO) service is free.

This service must have a minimal impact on Yahoo! overall revenues. The launched upgraded service would probably not help the monetization problems Yahoo! is facing. However, the purpose of this service, like many others, is to attract and retain a user base. And that counts for something too.