In 2011, the long-promised ubiquity of video—on-demand anytime, anywhere—started to become a reality, driven by mobile (smart phones, tablets). While this may seem obvious, remember, it was not so long ago (a couple years, really) that most doubted that consumers would ever watch anything other than short-form YouTube-like video clips on the small screen. Consumers are now beginning to watch premium long-form video (TV, motion picture content) on their most important screen on a massive scale, despite the frequent paucity of compelling content offered by service providers.

Online video advertising is proliferating at a fast clip. Online video ad spending in the U.S. is expected to grow to $3.0 billion in 2012, up from $1.9 billion this year, according to eMarketer. Such spending will increase to almost $6 billion in 2015, eMarketer said.But as online video advertising grows, so, too, do the number of ad networks designed to distribute online video ads. Video embeds are fast becoming the norm among b2b media companies' online venues as well.Distributors offer media vehicles for both video display ads of the garden variety and online video advertising that is increasingly being categorized as “content” which could be defined as an ad package that runs throughout a TV show streamed via Hulu or other online video networks.