Once upon a time, retailers measured success by the number of people walking by in the mall, how many entered the store, the percentage they spent, and basket size. Now, a world of zeroes and ones has changed their perspective entirely. Social media is expected to be the star during the coming holiday season, with retailers pushing Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter content to get in front of consumers and affect either online or in-store purchases. Smaller Christmas budgets are expected, so the fight is on to garner as large a share as possible of a shrinking pie.

Of course, nobody would come out and say, "Social media is nonsense, and I'm not getting anything for my investment." So, when the likes of Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), JCPenney (NYSE: JCP), and Target (NYSE: TGT) say that social media is connecting them with their customers and leading to more effective campaigns and product launches, do take it with a grain of salt. What can't be ignored, however, is that they're committing more resources to social media marketing, even though it's still far too soon to tell if it will be effective.

A new executive team is trying to bring MySpace back to its former glory. By focusing on music, videos and games, it hopes to recapture some of its luster. With the MySpace refugees mounting, it's time for some new blood to make some brilliant, future-changing decisions. This week, the company is holding a conference for its global ad sales team to explore ways to bring in traffic and beef up ad spending.

MySpace is poised to haul in $495 million in ad revenue this year, down 15% from last year's $585 million, according to research firm eMarketer. In August, MySpace attracted 64.2 million unique visitors from the United States, off 15% from August 2008, according to comScore, while Facebook pulled in 92.2 million unique U.S. visitors – up more than 100% year-over-year.

Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) is feeling a little heat from studios Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS), and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal. The major media companies would all like to make more money from Netflix's business model, according to BusinessWeek.

No one is really satisfied these days with the DVD industry. Growth in home video is no longer what it used to be. So content makers perceive a need to engage new strategies to offset the this lack of expansion. It would be nice if those strategies were confined to innovation in movie development and the reduction of project budgets. Instead, trying to negotiate more beneficial deals with distributors such as Netflix will probably be the focus of media execs.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is dominating online video just like it does internet searches. In August, Google's various video properties went past the 10 billion video view March. In all, the Mountain View, Calif., company took in 40% of all online video viewership, according to comScore.

Of course, the answer to Google's fortunes in online video viewership was YouTube. Google Video didn't account for much at all, as YouTube accounted for 99% of all video viewed on Google's video properties. The only problem: Google continues to not monetize YouTube very well, which has been a point of contention since the 2006 acquisition for $1.65 billion. The good news: YouTube has grown like gangbusters at the same time, and the YouTube acquisition has kept Google at the top of the video viewing field ever since.

I caught an item over the weekend at paidContent about paying for content. Come to think of it, what else would you expect to find over at that site? All joking aside, paying for content in the digital age is actually a very serious issue for media investors. If you're a shareholder of Disney (NYSE: DIS) or General Electric (NYSE: GE), as I am, then you know both of those businesses have ample exposure to intellectual properties that management would like to exploit over the web. For a fee, of course.

The paidContent piece discusses research apparently conducted by a News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) subsidiary that suggests consumers would be willing to pay for stuff on the internet. All I can say is, I hope the research turns out to be accurate.

Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube may one day not be a collection of dancing cat videos and dismal-quality cellphone movies. Although the content on YouTube ranges the gamut of quality and sources, how about rental of a quality movie there just using a quality online movie rental source like CinemaNow or Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX)? That day may be coming.

The word is that Google executives are talking to movie studios to see if YouTube could indeed become an online movie rental medium. It's about time. After years of offering mostly amateur video for free -- and becoming the largest online video source on the planet -- Google has to be taking a hard look at how to push monetization on the site. Sure, it's put advertising in place in a way that doesn't scare of the audience, but more has to be done. Google did not buy YouTube to be nice -- they purchased the company to eventually make money.

Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX - option chain) stock is trading lower today on reports that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) subsidiary YouTube is in talks with Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF), Sony's (NYSE: SNE) Sony Pictures, and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) Warner Brothers about online movie rentals via the YouTube platform.

If the plan goes through, it could present a significant challenge to NFLX, which has a stranglehold on the streaming movie business right now. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on NFLX.

This morning, NFLX opened at $41.31. So far today the stock has hit a low of $39.27 and a high of $41.50. As of 12:00, NFLX is trading at $40.15, down $1.63 (-3.9%). The chart for NFLX looks bullish.

Since paying $1.65 billion for YouTube three years ago, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has made progress. No doubt, the site is a dominant player in video -- especially for user-generated content. And Google is enhancing the platform, such as with better ad formats, as well as distribution partnerships with companies like Disney (NYSE: DIS).

However, investors want to know when the site will start to make profits.

In a move to bring profitability to its popular video sharing site YouTube, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has inked a deal with Time Warner, Inc. (NYSE: TWX) to show clips of the company's television shows and movies.

When Google announced back in 2006 that it would be paying $1.65 billion for the popular video sharing site, a lot of critics questioned whether or not the company would be able to turn a profit from the site, which at the time had around 46% of the online video market share.

While On2 Technologies (AMEX: ONT) has strong video compression solutions, the company failed to get much traction over the years (a key reason was the licensing fee structure). It's been especially painful for shareholders.

But today there was some good news: Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) agreed to purchase the company for $106.5 million in stock. On the news of the deal, On2's shares spiked 49% to $0.57.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), an elite member of a tech industry that includes related companies such as Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), issued its Q2 report on Thursday after the bell. According to Tom Johansmeyer's earnings preview, the market was looking for Google to generate about $5.49 billion on the top line. The search giant actually delivered $5.52 billion in net sales. I think we can call that roughly in-line. The bottom line, however, definitely beat expectations. Google made $5.36 per share. Analysts believed $5.08 would be the number.

That's a 28-cent beat on the bottom line. Not bad, although please keep in mind that it isn't as impressive as, say, a company that was expected to do 50 cents and actually posts 60 cents. I'm sure that goes without saying. The main thing to focus on here is the fact that Google seems to be holding its own during the economic malaise.

Disney (NYSE: DIS), a media conglomerate that does battle with the likes of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, CBS (NYSE: CBS), and News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS), changed things up this time around when it came to second-quarter earnings. When I reported on the company's first-quarter earnings, I observed that the Mouse missed expectations. Thankfully, Disney pulled itself together and went beyond the call of Wall Street.

Disney said it earned 43 cents per share on an adjusted basis when it issued its Q2 release on Tuesday after the bell. As I noted in my earnings preview, analysts were looking for 40 cents per share. While that's a nice beat, let's be realistic: Disney is still having a rough time. That 43 cents per-share figure represented a drop of 26% compared to the year-ago period.

Disney (NYSE: DIS), a media conglomerate that competes with CBS (NYSE: CBS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Sony (NYSE: SNE), and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), will report fiscal second-quarter earnings on Tuesday, May 5. And it appears that investors should be prepared for a significant decline in the bottom line. Analysts believe that income may drop by over 30% to $0.40 per share. Yep, those magical days of profit growth are, for the time being, a thing of the past.

And it's not difficult to understand why. Disney is battling a recession. Consumers aren't spending money. They need all kinds of promotions and discounts to get them to open their wallets. So, theme parks and consumer products are understandably challenged. And then there's the advertising recession. That affects Disney's media properties. DVD sales? They're not as robust as they used to be. All in all, this is not a great time to be a shareholder of the Mouse.

Hulu.com, the online video sensation backed by General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) NBC unit and News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) moved past industry heavyweight Yahoo!, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) in terms of videos viewed. Hulu, barely a year old, streams a huge amount of movies, TV shows and other non-YouTube content. In other words, it isn't a "you upload it" service: all the content there is professionally produced.

You may have seen the General Motors'(NYSE:GM) new Saturn commercials offering to help people who buy a car and then lose their jobs make car payments. An earnest dealer says "I've seen some car ads. If you lose your job, they'll take your car back. That sounds like the worst day ever. Honey, I'm home! Lost my job, don't have a car. What's for dinner?"

A very funny person has made a YouTube video that begins with the real ad and ends with the catchy slogan: "Saturn. We can do more. We have bailout money."