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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Content distribution network Akamai Technologies launched Openvideoplayer.com in an effort to unite the video publishing industry around an standardized video player. The base source code Akamai contributed to the Open Video Player has already been used by customers including Hulu and The NBA.

Leading third-party measurement firm Visible Measures announced today that it will provide online video metrics for MTV Networks 340-plus video destination sites.

Digital media company ON Networks will begin distributing outside content through its AllScreen Syndication Network, a decision that will open up its market, co-founder Jennifer Grogono says. ON Networks produces and distributes its own content to syndication platforms including iTunes, Adobe Media Player, Verizon, and TiVo.

Break Media has partnered with a number of top brands geared toward 18-34-year-old males, according to SVP of Sales & Partnerships Andrew Budkofsky. Its recently launched web series sponsored by Twix and Dos Equis, and has upcoming campaigns for Doritos and Denny’s.

Yesterday night MySpace launched its Self-Serve Ad Service, which will allow MySpace users to post advertisements directing viewers to their profile pages. Nick O’Neill at Social Times writes that the service seems to be targeted toward musicians, but its a tool companies can take advantage of as well. Major advertisers are creating profile pages for […]

Co-founder Tim Shey of Next New Networks, the publisher of micro-television networks such as Barely Political, says his company is making money publishing videos on YouTube. Next New Networks is one of the content producers that has been selling its own YouTube ads and has regularly sold out all of its inventory of overlay ads […]

Adap.TV, the start-up which allows video producers to insert video advertising from multiple ad networks, has raised $13 million Series B funding, TechCrunch reported last night.  I interviewed founder and CEO Amir Ashkinazi in Hollywood in May. Here’s the take by Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee. I’ve republished the interview today.  Congrats, Amir. Here’s the company […]

PubMatic, an optimization service that helps publishers earn more ad dollars, announced the launch of AdFlex today, a targeted, on-demand publishing inventory for ad networks. Andy interviewed PubMatic President Rajeev Goel at the Omma Global conference last week.

Branded content is still a relatively new and developing advertising format, but Ogilvy & Mather is ahead of the curve: In June 2007, while many digital ad agencies were still experimenting, it launched the high-production 12-episode web series "In Search of Real Food" on Yahoo for Unilever’s Hellmann’s. The second season, Real Food Summer School […]

Diggnation, the popular weekly tech/geek/lifestyle show hosted by Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht, has landed a big one-year sponsorship with Anheuser-Busch’s Michelob, NewTeeVee’s Liz Gannes reported last night. 

Advertising networks are fragmenting into specialized verticals like travel ad networks, women’s ad networks and gay ad networks, according to Frank Addante, serial entrepreneur and CEO of advertising technology company The Rubicon Project. The fragmentation is mimicking the way television stations split off into cable channels, he says.

Angel investor Ron Conway made a bold prediction to the overflowing audience at TechCrunch50 last Monday: product placement will become the next multi-billion dollar industry. Online video creators rejoiced, but Jim Armstrong, Managing Director for Clearstone Venture Partners, is not convinced. 

Last Monday, Adgregate Markets launched ShopAds, a banner advertising widget where consumers can purchase products without being navigated away from the page. The credit card purchases within the transactional banner ads are secure, even if the sites they are placed on are not, CEO Henry Wong told me after his presentation last Monday at TechCrunch50.

Nielsen teamed with Integrated Media Mesurement Inc. to create the first out-of-home national television rating system, the companies announced yesterday. IMMI uses cell phones to measure consumers’ media consumption wherever they happen to be, making it possible to track viewing in locations like gyms, offices, and bars.

We think the success of online advertising will result from user interaction.  Beyond just watching a video or seeing some snazzy Flash ad, users who opt-in to explore an ad will be more likely to establish brand loyalty…and buy stuff.

Universal Studios’ ad campaign for the upcoming "Heroes: Season 2" DVD, launched on Metacafe today, brings collaborative commercial mashups to the online video space. Viewers can use Kaltura’s collaborative editing tools on the Metacafe Heroes 2 channel to remix videos and create their own "Heroes moments." This campaign is the first of its kind in […]

The vast majority of online video viewers are watching pre-roll and overlay ads, a study released today by Break Media and Panache shows. Completion rates for 15-second pre-roll ads were 87 percent, and 77 percent viewed campaigns with overlay ads for at least 15 seconds.

The digital brand experience should be an advertiser’s first thought, not an afterthought, according to Organic digital ad agency Creative Director Gary Nelson. An online brand experience should be viewed as a product unto itself–one that can be advertised by broadcast media. The "Now What?" campaign for State Farm is one of the few already […]

For those of us who don’t like to see overlay ads pop up or stream while watching video, you won’t see any on the NBC Olympics coverage on MSN.  That’s a mandate from the International Olympic Committee, which keeps tight control of the way the Games are presented.

With the audiences relatively small for original Web video, the opportunity for producers and distributors to make money will come from brand messages and product placements "baked" into the video, says Jigar Thakarar, Director, Web Original Content Strategy at CBS Interactive.  (You will find his comments 2:30 into this clip.)