Online video is changing the way we market, and it requires skill sets they don't teach in business school (at least they didn't a decade ago, but now I'm dating myself). On one hand we have marketers believing their "unique selling proposition" is as interesting as the "Numa Numa" kid. On the other, we have today's ADHD-prone video viewers demanding short entertainment whether it is promotional or not. So the rules are fairly simple: Keep your promotion short, interesting, edgy and give us a surprise that makes us want to forward your clip. After all, it's not a "viral video" if nobody wants to share it.

There was a time when companies could simply boot up a Web site and their content would immediately begin showing up in various search engines.  For better or worse, those days are long gone.  To have content displayed, corporations need to understand what the search engines are looking for and then provide it to them.  If one company does not want to do that, a competitor certainly will.

As evidenced by the phenomenal success of Google, search has evolved from an interesting sideline into a primary function for many, if not most, Internet users.  Consequently, more and more companies are putting content up on their Web sites to attract the attention of search engines.

"You can have really great information on a site, but if a potential customer can't find you, what good is it?" asked George Aspland, president of eVision.

Chances are that most times a person won't find the company.  If a user types in a simple query today, tens of thousands, millions and even billions of results come pouring back in an instant.  In most cases, a user will sift though a couple of pages -- basically a few dozen links -- and either re-enter the query or give up the search in disgust.

Garnering the attention of the search engine vendors requires a delicate balance. While there are some steps that companies can take to improve their ranking, there are other items that lower the company's search rankings, and can even result in them being blacklisted in some cases. Consequently, they need to maintain a proper balance.

It is only a matter of time until nearly all advertisements around the world are digital.

Or so says David W. Kenny, the chairman and chief executive of Digitas, the advertising agency in Boston that was acquired by the Publicis Groupe for $1.3 billion six months ago.

Now Mr. Kenny is reshaping the digital advertising strategy for the entire Publicis worldwide conglomerate, which includes agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett and the Starcom MediaVest Group and the global accounts of companies like Procter & Gamble, American Express, Hewlett-Packard and General Motors.

The plan is to build a global digital ad network that uses offshore labor to create thousands of versions of ads. Then, using data about consumers and computer algorithms, the network will decide which advertising message to show at which moment to every person who turns on a computer, cellphone or — eventually — a television.

As with so much about the internet, the myth of youth prevails, such that any new web trend is assumed to be led by kids and teens, with adults slowly tagging after.

It's often not true, and that's certainly the case when it comes to social networking and user-generated content, which have driven such meteoric growth for sites YouTube and MySpace.

If there's one demographic that's embraced social networking and the larger idea of community, it's women, and women of all ages. Nothing quite captures that like the growth in traffic for sites like iVillage and Glam Media, which were quick to latch onto these trends.

Indeed, traffic to women's sites was up 39 percent in June 2007 compared to the same month the year before, according to comScore.

That's huge growth. Traffic to all sites grew just 3 percent from June to June.

It may seem weird, but I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when I see ads in my viral video. eMarketer expects online video advertising to nearly double in 2008 to $1.3 billion, but no one’s really nailed a scalable ad platform for video. However, Google’s been quietly testing their own system and there are a bunch of other startups tackling it as well.