While there are numerous local sites (CitySearch, Google, Yahoo, Local.com etc.), none of them have been successful in tapping into the community spirit and leveraging local business directory services. People in large metro areas can identify with their free weekly guides and newspapers, but spending one's time to contribute restaurant reviews for a corporate entity hasn't seemed worth it.

But YouGetIt.com is trying to change that by providing a comprehensive social networking/local business and news site. The startup will officially launch on April 16, but the preview and demo on the site are worth exploring.

If anything one criticism might be trying to do too much to fast as they have just about every community/business service one might imagine. Maintaining the site and populating it with content will require big money, so the company had better be well-funded. The company is partnering with Web2Corp, which if nothing else has one of the coolest logos I've seen in a long time.

Someone will get local right by combining user generated content with local entertainment and personalization. While we like to know what is going on around the world, what's happening around us is always of utmost interest.

The report of the death of the TV commercial has been greatly exaggerated. CNN Money has an article claiming that the 30-second spot is on life support and that Apple's new TV box is playing the role of Dr. Kevorkian.

While TV advertisers are under increasing pressure to change, they aren't dead yet, and Apple is way down on the list of companies pushing them into the light.

Despite CNN's provocative headline, the article talks true when it says:

Experts aren't convinced that Apple TV will be as big of a hit with consumers as the iPod was right off the bat -- after all, people have to pay for a TV show they could see for free on network TV.

Yes, people will pay for mostly-commercial free cable if you can produce shows like the Sopranos and Weeds, but they aren't available for free elsewhere. And people while some people pay for satellite radio, commercial radio is healthy.

Commercial TV will have to change once online video companies figure out how to target pre-roll ads to consumers and how to develop compelling interactive spots. Once advertisers get accustomed to higher, more measurable audience penetration and master turning a 10 second spot into a relationship (and lets not forget the TiVo effect), then commercial TV will be in a pickle. But the 30 second spot isn't going away anytime soon if ever.

What is a pipes -- or is it series of tubes -- company doing eating up online communications and social networking companies like Rosie O'Donnell at an all you can eat buffet?

Cisco bought online meeting company WebEx for $3.2 billion. While WebEx is more about business than socializing, it's still a software company that focuses on bringing people together. Maybe there will be an ad-supported video conferencing version of MySpace in the near future? It must be nice to have $21 billion in small bills laying around that you can use to buy companies at will.

Other Cisco acquisitions:

NeoPath Networks -- a file storage company (maybe free doc storage for users?)
Utah Street Networks- operates social networking site Tribe.net
Five Across -- makes community software.

Cisco also signed an agreement if February to delivery Internet TV (IPTV) to rural areas of the U.S. If Google can get into free WiFi, why should a networking company get a piece of the content/community pie?

However, Cisco might be more focused on making social networking a part of the enterprise rather than attacking the consumer space. Corporate versions of MySpace that let companies talk to suppliers and customers behind the firewall, or maybe professional websites ala LinkedIn where people in an industry can share ideas.

It will be interesting to see which direction Cisco goes during the next few months.

Google needs some schooling in sex terminology, according to SFGate's Violet Blue. She describes how AdSense ads that appear on adult content sites are often against pornography, which doesn't make the readers or publishers happy or the advertisers any money.

Blue also says words that transgendered folks use to describe themselves can not be used in AdWords ads, while terms that are offensive to them are allowable. While this issue may not be of relevance to your campaigns, it is an example of Google being seemingly arbitrary or incompetent in making decisions to ban advertisers or publishers.

Algorithms that try to determine context or intent must be continually tweaked by actual people who understand how words are used in contemporary language. As in this example, sometime automation can give results that go against logic, and Google needs to be aware when that happens.

Bryan Brickley discusses the various options for bloggers to generate ad revenue on Adotas, but he fails to mention one important solution: brand sponsorship.

Most bloggers are lucky to make a few pennies per page view through in-line text links (which for me are disruptive and not relevant), and cost-per-click ads like AdSense that are prone to click fraud and generate next to nothing.

But blogs might be a better match for display advertising that reinforces a brand. Because most blogs focus on a few to a dozen or so posts a day, most visitors read an item or two and then move onto something else. But they can be loyal readers, making it attractive to brands who would like to have multiple interactions with a reader.

For example, Reebok could sponsor a sports blog because the odds are that each visitor won't see the same ad more than once or twice a day. By making sure that the same visitor sees your pitch several times a week, you can start to build a relationship especially if the blog uses cookies to track repeat visitors. Through multiple creatives, advertisers could change their ads based on how many times a person has been exposed.

By changing the message and recognizing that this isn't the first interaction, brands might have a better chance at getting a response. Wouldn't this be better than being part of a blog ad network where you aren't sure which readers have actually been exposed?

Advertisers like TV because (pre-TiVo) they could be fairly certain that nearly everyone who watched the program saw the ad (aka reach). This can also be done through blog sponsorships.

The most lucrative Internet company buys a hot startup that enables people to view content. It's a marriage made in heaven what could go wrong? But are we talking about 2006 or 1998?

Well, the $4.2 billion that AOL paid for Netscape turned out to be an awful investment for many of the same reasons: the technology that drove the product was relatively easy to replicate, and there was no business model.

Google is learning the hard way that eyeballs and hype do not a business make. Just as Microsoft's Internet Explorer overwhelmed Netscape, Joost or blinkx or another video search company might make YouTube an also ran within a year. While Netscape had to battle with unfair business practices from its main competitor, Google has the copyright lawyers to content with.

YouTube's technology isn't heavy on the intellectual property, and they don't have any business relationships with advertisers or content providers that give them the upper hand.

There has never been a viable business model for browser software, and user-generated video might fall into the same conundrum.

Google might soon be haunted by the ghost of (the alive) Mark Andreessen.

Media gurus Michael Eisner and Mark Burnett are touting short form video as the next big thing for big media and user generated content alike. Having A-listers work on online video could be enough for advertisers to become believers.

Burnett of Survivor fame has been doing game shows and short-form video for several years with Yahoo, and now he's teaming with MTV to encourage users to make parodies of movies. The best videos will be shown during the MTV video awards. I can't wait to see Elton John starring as The Queen or Britney as Little Miss Sunshine.

Eisner has a production company that is producing 90-second serials that will generate revenue from pre-roll, post-roll and product placement. While Prom Queen might be pushing the audience's limit for advertising, a success could spur more advertisers large and small to delve into video.

One category geared up for video ads is the automotive industry, which has been taking its slick TV ad talents online. From auto dealers to classifieds to the Big 3, auto is spending online in a big way.

Within a year advertisers will have no fears about producing video ads and matching it with professional and amateur content. While most folks are projecting money moving from TV online, I bet a fair amount of search marketing dollars will shift to video.

Video search engine blinkx published a guide for maximizing revenue from online video. The SEO wiki encourages participation in sharing ideas about the best methods for publishers and marketers to make money.

Blinkx CTO Suranga Chandratillake also published a whitepaper with information about how to use Media RSS, how to submit video, and how to optimize files for video search engines. Extending SEO to video is no surprise as more marketers and publishers recognize the business opportunity in capturing traffic. Optimized video is a way to lure traffic to a site which can be monetized through display advertising or affiliate programs.

The framework and basic advice can help newbies to video, but since it just launched there is plenty of room for wiki-ers to contribute, which helps the community as well as blinkx.

As surely as the Sun will shine (okay, I'm in Oregon, so maybe not today), marketers will attack the social network space and push the boundaries of good practices to get the word out about their product.

JupiterResearch, says that 48 percent of marketers plan to use social marketing during the next year. Social networking websites have a young and skeptical audience that doesn't trust advertisers, so getting word of mouth from "trusted peers" is important.

Most marketers will be up front about their activities, but you know, that just as PayPerPost is offering to bribe bloggers to endorse advertisers' product, so to are the marketers willing to pay people to casually tout their products. For example, see PlatinumMillennium, which has an affiliate program that pays commissions for touting "how to make money" videos on MySpace.

Affiliate programs are legitimate businesses as long as they are banners etc. But paying people to talk about products they don't use isn't right. After 50 years, the music industry is still ripe with payola, and soon MySpace and all of the social networking sites will be awash in the same practices.

Marketers will give away free music, clothes, cell phones etc. to get the endorsements of influential social stars. Has anyone out there been approached by a company willing to pay for a little social love?

Just as blogging tools have enabled anyone to become a publisher, video tools are enabling anybody who cares to run their internet TV channel, and every TV channel to make themselves available online.

While video generally receives a higher CPM than print, today's video channels are struggling for respect as the audience measurement and targeting features are still being developed. Just as text websites are using geotargeting and cookies to identify their audience, so can video sites use demographic information to deliver ads on the fly.

Broadband company Narrowstep offers dynamic advertising against short or long form videos, including content from many European TV channels. We'll soon have anoverwhelming number of video channels to choose from. Being able to match viewer interests with appropriate advertisers like Narrowstep's ability to insert video ads dynamically is an effective way to monetize the long tail of content.

Since they will never approach the millions of eyeballs that TV can provide, IPTV companies should generate the most revenue from each video stream by making sure that the ads for feminine protection products aren't going to single males. By collecting user demographics through registration data and tracking video ad click throughs, webcasters can approach the one-to-one marketing that makes both sides happier.