VOD and broadband video vie for ad dollars - I've been saying for a while that broadband can be viewed as another video-on-demand platform, which inevitably means that it's in competition with VOD initiatives from cable operators. For both content providers and advertisers, a key driver of their decision to put resources into one or the other of the two platforms is monetization. And with VOD advertising still such a hairball, broadband has gained a decisive advantage. As a result, I wasn't surprised to read in this B&C article that ad professionals are imploring cable operators to get on the stick and improve VOD's ad insertion processes. Cablevision took an important step in this direction, announcing this week 24 hour ad insertion. Still, much more needs to be done if VOD is going to effectively compete with broadband video for ad dollars.

Cisco sees an exabyte future - Cisco released an updated version of its "Visual Networking Index" which I most recently wrote about in February. Once again, Cisco sees video as the big driver of IP traffic growth, accounting for 91% of global consumer IP traffic by 2013. The fastest growing category is "Internet video to the TV" (basically the convergence play), while the biggest chunk of video usage will still be "Internet video to the PC" (today's primary model). Speaking to Cisco market intelligence people recently, it's clear that from CEO John Chambers on down, the company believes that video is THE growth engine in the years to come.

iPhone's new video capabilities - Daisy reviews this in her podcast comments today. It's hard to underestimate the impact of the iPhone on the mobile video market, and the forthcoming iPhone 3G S's video capabilities (adaptive live streaming, video capture/edit and direct video downloads for rental or own) mean the iPhone will continue to raise the mobile video bar even as new smartphone competitors emerge. Nielsen has a good profile of iPhone users here. It notes that 37% of iPhone users watch video on their phone, which 6 times more likely than regular mobile subscribers.