My first work in Web TV dates back long before Web 2.0, at the infrastructure level, as I come out of the Internet telecom space – or the industry that makes the Web do what it does as we know it. It’s a cool part of the business. The Internet is ultimately a sophisticated communications infrastructure designed to modify or replace other, older platforms, like landline and mobile phones or TV. It also holds a lot of the secrets to what’s ahead on the Web.

For example, a good year (or more) before video exploded online, things on the back end were pointing to just that. Information moves online in packets, and video is the heaviest. In order to deliver all those YouTube clips, and now, webisodes and favorite shows, speed and good compression are needed. Until recent years, the Web just wasn’t there. Just the same, it was also easy to predict that webisodic and professional Web video would ultimately be king while most were just starting to go bananas over user driven stuff on YouTube and MySpace.

While it’s closer than ever now, we’re still a long way away from the reality of TV on the Web – and the revenue promised to follow it. Yes, a lot of people are watching TV online now, and many more will in the future. Product placement and sponsorship offer revenue opportunity that extends beyond traditional ads. But, none of this is without challenges and limitations. The majority of Web users overall are not watching TV online, and while money is being made through product placements and sponsorships, it’s not without hassle. The market is still very early, and it’ll be either a blessing or a curse, depending on how you go about it.

Here are a few ways I believe to win:

Forget Webisodes…for Now. I’m not a fan of webisodic content from a business standpoint right now, for a few reasons. First, it can be expensive, particularly if you want real quality. Other formats can be done a lot cheaper with less. Second, while there have been some early successes, like Kate Modern, the majority of online video users just cut their teeth a year or two ago on three minute cat clips. Given this, I believe users will adopt better to formats similar to Wine Library TV and WallStrip right now more than anything that requires significant attention.

Understand the Money. The buzz of the moment is the millions that’ll be spent in Web video sponsorships, etc. But don’t be fooled – it doesn’t mean it’s going to land in the hands of small producers or platforms. In fact, historically, it’s been the opposite online with exception to a few players. Saturn is sponsoring a show – but it’s with CBS. Model.Live was brought to us by Express – by way of Conde Nast. There are many other obstacles beyond this. Think through how you plan to get involved, because there are ways to make money – or lose your shirt.

It’s No Longer Just an Internet Game. Think Web 2.0 is just about the Internet crowd these days? Think again. The best in early Web video is coming out of Hollywood at the moment for the most part, with exception to a few Internet successes. They’ve got the connections, experience, equipment and talent to make big things happen – and big things attract big brands, platforms and advertisers. Expand your viewpoint of the market if you can – it’ll pay off in the end.

In the future, expect the bar to get higher, for networks and major entertainment properties to continue to play larger roles and more big names to move into the market. Producers, writers and talent in Hollywood can often fund their own projects, and their marquee names can attract brands. I wouldn’t be surprised to see investment capital shift into these hands. How can Internet executives get a foothold? By doing what my company, 9, did: keep feet in both industries and leverage your Internet experience.

Patricia Handschiegel is an aspiring serial entrepreneur and founder of Stylediary.net (sold 2007) and The 9 Group, a digital consulting and content/production company that leverages entertainment and internet experience. She blogs about the intersection of traditional and web TV for TV Week and is currently producing and developing TV projects in both markets.

Imagery provided by iStock/joshblake

You’ve likely heard often enough about YouTube channels established by news media organizations to distribute material to Web users in a place many are expected to frequent. But do you take those sources up on their offers? Do you subscribe? Do you follow?

This week, the BBC announced that it would add content in multiple languages - Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu - to its YouTube-based World News channel. Which is fairly commendable insofar as access to news and information is concerned. Yet, there’s a question that’s lingered in mind my about this topic. And that is, does method of delivery interest you? And if not, why not?

Now, I won’t try to push the idea that few video views translates into wasted effort. The BBC’s video archive on YouTube can show clips with a few hundred or several thousand views on average. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Associated Press channel shows similar numbers. (The channels’ subscriber counts are 12k and 15k, respectively.) But you might also say there’s a noticeable lack of attention given to them.

So who among you, if any, count yourselves among those subscribers, or subscribers for any other news channel feeds on YouTube or places elsewhere? If you tend not to watch news in that fashion, is it out of disinterest in the format? Would you prefer free live broadcasts, wherever you may reside on the globe? Or is it that news media in general bores you, and as a result news media on YouTube is even more odious still?

It is evident that video is climbing steadily to become perhaps the most consumed content medium on the Web. This goes as much for entertainment as it does for education. Sometimes a mix of the two. And it’s also clear that the claim of “how you want it, where you want it, when you want it” is voiced by many of you. Yet it’s equally certain that what is presented through YouTube, the de facto leader in varietal Web video, is not grabbing much traction. At least not the sort of traction and recognition that stalwarts like the BBC and AP and others tend to register in the minds of consumers.

So what gives, folks? Is it that YouTube is atrocious at serving news content in an intelligible way, and that you’d rather rely on other users to direct you to popular and viral material? Is it that smart search problem that afflicts numerous other media venues on the Web? Or is YouTube not the ideal setting for the news you crave?

Given my own habits developed over years of browsing this vast expanse of ones and zeroes, I’ll venture to guess that most everything I’ve asked here gets at least a partially agreeable response. But don’t let me put words in your mouth. Tell us and your fellow readers how you view this particular topic.

How do you see YouTube and the news media? ( surveys)

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Back in the latter half of June, I asked a fairly simple question concerning NBC’s Olympic foray on the Web: Will costs outweigh rewards? I imagined that the broadcaster might have to apply red tape to its cost-profit report. Perhaps a whole lot of it, even, particularly given the sheer volume of live and on-demand coverage promised to potential Web viewers. That being said, there’s a number now being floated by eMarketer concerning NBC’s in-video advertising that seems remarkably small. A $5.75 million kind of small.

A report in today’s Wall Street Journal by Emily Steel references eMarketer’s estimate on advertisement revenue to be tallied once all is played through and Beijing sends the last of its international guestlist back to their respective places of origin. The Internet researcher appears to lay some of the blame on NBC’s strict delivery deal with Microsoft and the Silverlight plugin requirement. A number of participants in a Mashable poll made known their aversion to the plugin, so eMarketer’s assessment could very well be accurate.

The Wall Street Journal notes that NBCOlympics.com users’ inability to view and share content across various external sites would limit the audience NBC might otherwise have attained. In fact, this clash of interests among NBC and Web users proved to be a notable issue, particularly in the area of YouTube, where a race to take down footage of Olympic games before they were broadcast in delayed-release on NBC stations drew the attention of the blogosphere as well as the mainstream press.

A sports advertising benchmark cited by the WSJ for the world of Web-streaming video was CBS’s ability to garner some $23 million in total revenue throughout the three-week-long NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament. Do watch for the key words “total revenue,” however. The presentation of in-video advertisements is only one part of the picture at NBCOlympics.com. (Albeit a sensibly important aspect of the entire portrait.)

The thing is, if CBS and NBC were to juxtapose viewerships, one would still see eMarketer’s premonition as somewhat unfortunate. CBS offered a figure of 4.8 million viewers. NBC, meanwhile, claimed to have nearly as much in its opening day, with 4.2m. And just this past Wednesday it issued a figure to the tune of 6.2m unique users.

We’ll certainly have to wait until events complete wrap up to offer a definitive take on the effect NBC Olympics has had. While I have voiced some negatives about NBC’s online delivery of events, I think my initial impression - that the deal will be seen as an aid for the company - will be realized in the weeks ahead. Though maybe just barely.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:NBC’s Web Coverage Of Olympics To Clash With TVMicrosoft, NBC Join for Olympics Coverage OnlineNBCOlympics: One Week After the Bejing Opener (Poll)Olympic YouTube Channel Puts International News in One PlaceNBC’s Online Olympic Channel: Will Costs Outweigh Rewards?Contemplating Microsoft Silverlight’s Post-Olympic Fortunes (Poll)Olympics Viewing Should Teach TV Studios to Embrace the Web

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Cmypitch

20-word Description: Cmypitch is an online community for entrepreneurs. Using video, it connects businesses to sources of funding, information, advice, and opportunities.

CEO’s Pitch: Using video, Cmypitch connects businesses to sources of funding, information, advice, opportunities and services.

It has three main groups of users: business owners; investors; and business service providers. Through video, businesses can present their ideas and companies with real impact. Investors can get an instant feel for the people behind an idea or company. Service providers can differentiate their services to a targeted group.

The community focuses on different stages of the business life cycle. Within each, business people can network, build contacts, share ideas and interact with like-minded individuals.

Mashable’s Take: Based in London and headed by ex-Credit Suisse VP Emmett Kilduff, Cmypitch can be used, as the company suggests in its introductions above, for business development and unending search for growth opportunities. Things like funding, advice, and general resource information are all tools in the tool chest, so to speak. But the site, quite a young venture in and of itself, seems to offer some nice added value in the way of featured content. How so? Something called Entrepreneur TV.

If you’re considering starting up an operation all your own, opening a franchise, wish to sell a brand/place already in existence, or simply shuffle through a digital rolodex of companies listed in the Cmypitch business directory, this website is really a quality place to go for guidance. Again, it’s fairly new, so you won’t find reams and reams of data. But for starters it carries considerable weight. Well-tailored from the get-go, I think.

Alternatively, if you just happen to follow the business world closely, reading the Wall Street Journal and/or Financial Times every day, keeping your cable or satellite box tuned to CNBC, the segment of Cmypitch labeled Entrepreneur TV alone is actually very entertaining. There aren’t too many profiles of people and the businesses they run. There are about 16 in all of varying subject and length. But if you enjoy those featured so far on the page, and new items emerge with regularity, I can foresee them driving ample traffic to the site relatively quickly. They are that well done.

As with other sites recently launched with an exclusively business-driven focus, Cmypitch isn’t quite competitive with LinkedIn, the darling of the social business world. Instead it sits off to one side as a kind of independent annex. Somewhere to go to get even further involved in entrepreneurial knowledge and conversation. And I think it’s fair to say that this one will soon be garnering a good bit of attention from all parts of the corporate world.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

div class=”tradevibes_linkdiv”>cmypitch company profile provided by TradeVibes

Olympics programming is off to an incredible start.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Friday night’s opening ceremony attracted 34.2 million people, while 24.1 million viewers tuned in to see Michael Phelps capture his first gold medal of the games on his way to an Olympic record of eight gold medals.

But the Journal also mentioned that NBColympics.com saw 4.8 million viewers stream 3.1 million videos in a showing that has eclipsed any previous Olympics and has seen an extreme shift in the way most studios think people watch television.

For years, studios were concerned that the Web would ruin ratings and if they embraced it too much, they would undoubtedly see revenue drop as more people would choose to watch television illegally online and fail to watch where the studios could make some money.

But as the Journal points out, 90 percent of all viewers have watched the Olympics on television alone, while 10 percent have watched the games both online and on television, and a mere 0.2 percent have watched them online only.

“The streaming will not diminish the ratings,” Neal Pilson, a sports-media consultant who advised the International Olympic Committee in negotiations for broadcast rights, told the Journal. “It encourages viewers and provides them with information. There will be no dilution or fragmentation of the national audience.”

Realizing that, why has this cult of ignorance become such an integral part of the studios’ decision-making?  The Web isn’t something to be feared, these studios should embrace it as the next frontier in their dominance over the entertainment industry.  And as the Olympics have shown quite well, the Internet won’t make them lose ratings and could actually see some increased revenue if the online versions are monetized properly.

But I digress.  The fact of the matter is that both Hulu and now, the Olympics, have shown that putting programming online is not only a major benefit to all parties involved, but has practically become a necessity.  The real value of placing programming online can go much further than this.  Why not simulcast shows both on TV and online?  By doing so, studios can prove to advertisers that there is really no loss in ratings and they can be reassured that the revenue potential would be greater if they properly monetize the online component.

Some Olympics programming is 12 hours behind the actual time the games are played and all the while, people are more than willing to watch them on TV even though the results are readily available online.  And if the Web isn’t ruining the ratings of that kind of programming, can you imagine what the benefits would be if studios finally embraced simulcasts to the Web?

The idea has been bandied about quite a bit over the past few years, but with the success of the Olympics programming, there leaves little doubt that television will not die out to the Web and the Web won’t lose out to television.  And if the studios believe in that premise and endorse it, we’ll all win.

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As lovely as Verizon’s Fios Internet and television services may be (speaking with extensive real-world experience with both options, the fiber connection straight to the home does well in helping those bits along), the company’s planned introduction of Web video playback through partnerships with YouTube, Veoh, Blip.TV, and Break is potentially DOA. Why? Because in order to have a go at that type of content from the comfort of your big(ger)-screen LCD or plasma, you’ll have to check your frugality at the door.

Indeed, after Verizon completes its beta test of its new Web video features, Fios TV subscribers will have to spring to a $19.99/month Home Media DVR package to get the goods, according to Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny. (Plus whatever traditional television channel package makes sense to purchase.) Which means that, in the space of a year, you’ll pay somewhere around $240 a 12 month rental, just for access. That surpasses the going price of the base model Apple TV set-top box, which itself sports a bridge to YouTube but is nonetheless often pegged by critics as overpriced.

In short, a rather odd premium for Verizon to ask of its subscribers, no? Especially for those who like to consume your average Web video clip.

Mind you, Verizon isn’t asking present and future Fios TV customers to tip a few extra pennies over existing pricing plans to get Web video with a rubber-button remote in hand. They’re keeping things as is, more or less. Instead, it can be thought that some extras will be paying visits to a portion of the company’s subscribers.

But Verizon really has things backwards, here. As you and I both know, Web video is free. (Nearly all of it is, anyway.) So to grant only those who spring for the biggest and baddest (not literally, of course) DVR boxes on Verizon’s menu, it is effectively making inaccessible to most subscribers what is eminently available at no cost to hundreds of millions of broadband users all over the world. Peculiar? I think so. Furthermore, if you’re pushed to subscribe to a stream of dozens of channels for a rough average of $50 per month, what would be the purpose of forgoing the objective of “getting your money’s worth,” as it were, to watch a dog take a journey on a skateboard, or any other odd clip found online? Your time before the television is presumably not limitless, after all. Logic would have it that you the viewer would prioritize material not obtained freely (and legally) through a Web browser. So you would probably visit HBO, The History Channel, Showtime or AMC or whathaveyou before hitting Veoh’s servers, right?

Of course, it’s entirely understandable that Verizon will do what it is able within the space if its own unique position in the market. It plans to offer an option to those with a set piece of hardware in order to make some effort in matching what other players (TiVo is one) are pursuing. Still, doing so seems to completely misunderstand what it is that makes Web video such a catch for some many people. And so it will likely meet few accepting buyers. Money wasted, then?

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