YouTube, (NASDAQ: GOOG) awaits those clever minds that shall reap the great rewards stored within it's pixels. Sources like LonelyBloggers are already reporting that "lonelygirl15" is actively seeking sponsors. Could it be that a cornucopia of income producing opportunities is at our hands? You had better believe so!

Google itself is just beginning to poke and prod the video web world to find sound and sustainable ways to legitimize YouTube as a profit generating force to be reckoned with. The GigaOM blog reported on Google's placement of Shashi Seth to spearhead those efforts. A nice choice of personnel for the task, I might add.

But what is most intriguing to me are some of the ideas that are swirling around in regard to the ways little guy might garner some of that cash. For instance, there's an idea that successful YouTubers could solicit sponsorships for name recognition spots and trademark icon placements. These "tubers" would, for a one time fee from $50 to $500, place a company's product image or logo in the lower corner of their video as a "watermark" image similar to those ghosted logos you see in the lower right corner of most of your favorite television programs. Also being considered are product placements within user videos.

What the proposition requires is that the YouTuber must be able to document prior performance (viewership) of their videos, they must exhibit proper business acumen, they need to be registered with the proper taxing authorities as a viable business and they need to understand negotiations and contracts. It is already believed that contracts for advertising via YouTube videos are to be solicited from Coke, Pepsi, EverReady, Kodak and Sprint Nextel.

Some bright techie with gonads, smarts and some business law background is going to lay hold of this concept and form a management group strictly for negotiating YouTube advertising contracts. They need to get in right now while the door is open wide. No doubt Google is aware that these concepts will quickly take root. It will be better for everyone if an independent gets in there and wedges the door open before Google tightens up the program.

( Off in the distance, I hear the sound of someone getting filthy rich!)

As I mentioned in my post about Blogher, AIM is where it's at for the sorts of people who use instant messenger programs to communicate. Not only do teenagers love the product, with all the spiraling viral effects that has for AOL, but I use it for work -- and many other businesses are becoming IM-savvy.

AIM, however, may have come to a bit of an innovation plateau -- the unit seems to be focusing on cuteness and personality rather than functionality. AOL needed to get working if the company wished to expand into the nether reaches of instant communication and electronic networking. Today's announcement of the company's acquisition of Userplane (for an undisclosed sum) underscored Time Warner's dual strategies in this market, which are (1) dominate and innovate and (2) do it by acquisition, whenever possible.

Userplane CEO Mike Jones says the company will remain a separate unit, and the company's venture capitalist lauds Userplane for having been cashflow positive "for a long time." Userplane brings a very strong position in the dating and social networking market, and it's oh-so-Web 2.0. According to TechCrunch, Userplane "uses Flash and Ajax to offer video, audio and text chat in the browser, in single or multiple chat rooms. Those video and audio chats can be recorded using the company's Webrecorder application."