So, we've been talking to some clever independent Hollywood Web producers about making money out of Web video by creating entertaining, sponsored content. Tim Street, producer/director/writer, has developed a hit with his show French Maid TV which gets millions of streams on YouTube and other sites. Having developed the franchise he is using the "maids" to demonstrate how to use company products and services who sponsor the show. The "how to" video sector is really growing, as reported in the Wall Street Journal last week. One way to commercialize these videos are through sponsorships. But Tim reminds of a drawback: while the show segments live on forever, the sponsors sponsors don't always.Tim's Holy Grail is to find a way to dynamically swap out sponsorship messages in his show. That would be awesome. Oh, and by the way, the maids are not French, but I bet you figured that out.-- Andy Plesser

From small online videos content producers such as EQAL and NextNewNetworks, to giant ones like Yahoo!, the marketing messages of sponsors are being "baked" into original productions. These messages range from product placements to branded characters to stories about a particular product or service.As online video advertising is in its nascent stage, sponsored content or "advertorials" are a big trend and away to make money. This theme was repeatedly mentioned to me by several independent producers I've spoken with. I will be publishing several of these interviews over the next few days.In a sense, Madison Avenue is moving to Hollywood as the creativity of independent filmmakers is being sought by marketers who had only relied on their advertising agencies. This is very exciting.At Digital Hollywood last week, I interviewed the head of IBM's entertainment and media consulting group Saul Berman. He talks about the impact of digital media on the entertainment industry. He says that Hollywood has to change -- that it has been way behind the curve relative to other major industries. Saul references this recently released study about the imperative of change in his comments. -- Andy Plesser

(video upload coming shortly) Mashable, one of the world's top 10 most influential blogs, is expanding its events business. Tomorrow in Manhattan, hundreds of Mashables will partying at Webster Hall for a performance of Grand Master Flash. The tickets are just about sold out, we have learned.If Mashable's party in San Francisco last month, which was called a "wild one" by Caroline McCarthy of CNET News.com, tomorrow's should be a blast. Last week in Hollywood, I spoke with founder Pete Cashmore. He told me that Mashable is expanding both events and "mixers" -- sounds like a great way to build awareness and sell sponsorships. Pete will not be in attendance tomorrow night. Hope it's great fun.

Mashable, one of the world's top 10 most influential blogs, is expanding its events business. Tomorrow in Manhattan, hundreds of Mashables will partying at Webster Hall for a performance of Grand Master Flash. The tickets are just about sold out, we have learned.If Mashable's party in San Francisco last month, which was called a "wild one" by Caroline McCarthy News.com, tomorrow's should be a blast. Last week in Hollywood, I spoke with founder Pete Cashmore. He told me that Mashable is expanding both events and "mixers" -- sounds like a great way to build awareness and sell sponsorships. Pete will not be in attendance tomorrow night. Hope it's great fun.-- Andy Plesser

NBC Direct, the platform to deliver downloads of high quality programming, is opening its beta testing, according to a report in NewTeeVee. This is different from Hulu, the joint venture of NBC and News Corp. Hulu streams flash video. NBC Direct provides a download to save and watch "true" 720 HD. As HD files are so large, NBC will incorporate a substantial peer-to-peer component. Providing the P2P technology is New York-based Pando Networks. Earlier this month I caught up with Pando CEO Robert Levitan who explains the integration of Pando and the quickly evolving transformation of P2P technology as a "rogue application" to a legitimate protocol.-- Andy Plesser

Surely one of the biggest challenges facing publishers seeking to monetize their online video content is how to effectively use ads from a multitude of ad networks. These ad networks represent the largest pool of online video inventory.The problem is that there are a number of video ad networks and many have different formats. Moreover, there are a number of ad serving technology companies who help publisher. Most of not compatible. San Mateo-based Adap.tv, which started as a platform to deliver overlay ads, has changed course to provide a universal tool which allows publishers to integrate multiple advertising sources -- both network and internal inventory.A few months back, I interviewed CNET's Rafe Needleman who told me that there were just too many ad networks startups in in the online video space. I agree. Whether Adap.tv can bring uniformity to the industry remains to be seen, but it would be welcome.Here is my interview with Adap.tV CEO Amir Ashkinazi. Before forming Adap.tv, Amir was founder of CTO of Shopping.com which was sold to eBay. We caught up last week at Digital Hollywood.-- Andy Plesser

Magnify.net, the New York-based start-up which organizes video collections around specific interests on customized Web page, has new plug-in which will allow bloggers using Movable Type to insert customized video directly into a blog post. Steve Rosenbaum the CEO, says that the search and discovery technology of Magnify.net will easily curate relevant videos from multiple video sharing services. Today the company is announcing a plug-in for MoveableType and plans to introduce them for WordPress and other major blog platforms. This seems as cool idea as blogging becomes video-rich. Whether bloggers will rely on an automated process or search for themselves remains to be seen. I caught with Steve at Digital Hollywood last week where he explains. -- Andy Plesser

While YouTube has the overwhelming share of video streams, Yahoo! streams the greatest amount of TV programming from series to music videos to news programs, leading AOL and MSN. And it has the "most monetized video streams," a Yahoo! spokesperson told Beet.TV, citing comScore data. Although revenue is not disclosed, this must be a substantial business for Yahoo! Karn Gilford is VP and General Manager for Yahoo! Entertainment. I spoke with her in her office in Santa Monica last Wednesday afternoon. This is the second of two interviews. Karin told me that Yahoo! is developing applications for the iPhone. A spokeswoman declined to provide any schedule for its release and did not indicate this was imminent. She spoke about reaching a tipping point where television programming will move to the computer in an ad supported model. -- Andy Plesser

As publishers seek to maximize the opportunities for video advertising on their sites, some are offering prominent thumbnail images, animated banners and custom video players. CNET Networks is providing branded video channels with multiple players and companion ads. It has a campaign up for Ford Synch which uses multiple television ads in its proprietary player. The ads were created for television. I've pasted a screen shot below. (This advertiser video channel debuted last year.) At Digital Hollywood last week in Los Angeles, I caught up with Laura Froelich, VP, Marketing Innovation, CNET. She was on a panel which explored the how traditional media can integrate authoritative journalism with community generated content. (Fellow panelist Jim Brady, Executive Editor of the washingtonpost.com created some controversy by suggesting that identities of readers who comment be identified.) In this interview, Laura explains the importance in context of content as well as the opportunities for marketers to showcase video on CNET. -- Andy Plesser

Slide, with 170 million uniques per month, making it the world's seventh biggest online destination, is not a Web site at all. but a an assembly of third party applications, known as widgets. These widgets sit on social networks and are shared among members.Its application FunWall is the number one active application on Facebook, Slide's Jared Fliesler told me in this interview at Digital Hollywood last week. FunWall sends some 4 million video streams across the product on a daily basis, he said. Throwing Pregnacy Tests, A SuperPoke For Juno, the Movie SuperPoke, another widget in the Slide network has been used by some creative marketing folks in Hollywood. Some 5-6 million "pokes" are "thrown" on a daily basis. For the promotion of the DVD for the film Juno, which depicts teenage pregnancy, a pregnancy test was created, as a joke of natch, and some 2 million of the test were "thrown," Jared told Beet.TV-- Andy Plesser