The Olympics were supposed to be NBC's big profit engine for this year. The unit has been something of a disappointment to parent General Electric (NYSE: GE), but one event could have changed that.

Indeed, NBC's ratings for its Olympic programming seem to have been outstanding and its broadcast revenues for the event may set a record for TV ad income for sports programming.

But internet revenue for NBC's coverage may be remarkably small. According to The Wall Street Journal, "NBCOlympics.com will generate just $5.75 million in video-ad revenue from the Games, according to estimates from research firm eMarketer Inc." Some of the disappointing numbers could come from the decision to run only a modest amount of coverage on the website, but the problem may by much greater than that.

Web video may be a bust, at least from a revenue standpoint. There is more and more evidence that points in that direction. YouTube has certainly been a huge disappointment for Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). Viacom has struggled with making big money off the online version of MTV. Video has done very little to bring extra revenue to Facebook and MySpace.

The problem with selling video commercials on the internet could be that consumers have come to expect that everything online is free. Banner ads and search ads are easy to avoid as there is nothing active or intrusive about them. Video ads often start to play whether the person online wants to see them or not. That may lead to a rejection of the experience altogether.

Making cash on web video may never work. The media companies just don't want to admit it.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

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.

ABC News reports that consumers are using web video to voice their complaints with products and services. I am wondering whether this could be the killer application that will open consumers' wallets to buy Web cameras and related software.

Michael Whitford, a systems engineer from Chandler, AZ, posted a smash-and-bash video titled "Macbook Destruction" in which he demolishes his malfunctioning laptop. Whitford was upset when his new Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) Macbook conked out only six months after he purchased it. When Apple refused to fix the computer for free under his extended warranty, Whitford took matters into his own hands.

With a camera and a sledgehammer, Whitford explained his gripe to the audience before systematically smashing the Macbook to bits. He posted the video on the Web site consumerist.com and within four days Apple contacted him, apologizing for the problem and offering up a brand new $1,700 computer.

It was a big year for Web2.0, especially with Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube.

But what about 2007? What can we expect?

I had a chance to interview a variety of top players in the space:

Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CTO of blinx:

In 2006, video sharing was the biggest trend with lots of companies -- especially the smaller sites -- growing really fast, which highlights the demand for online video. We also saw a great jump in user-generated content. But, traditional media and entertainment companies are catching up and seeing the Internet as a great distribution channel. In 2007, we expect to see even more content on the Web -- especially high-quality content -- and a greater need for better video search engines that can help Internet users navigate through the clutter. Also, with the Internet making content creation and distribution cheap, we expect to see a lot of experimentation with the length of videos and advertisements.