Not directly video related, but too good to ignore.

What a fantastic coincidence: AdAge reports that Aflac is planning to trim back on their iconic duck campaign immediate triggers former Iowa Gov. Vilsack to abandon his bid for the presidency.

The reason? “So it is money and only money that is the reason that we are leaving today,” he said at a news conference.

I guess they were hoping the popularity of the duck would carry Vilsack to New Hampshire and beyond. Too bad. John Stewart was having a ball with it.

Seems to me that Joost is getting all the PR buzz and industry attention in 2007 that was owned in 2006 by BrightCove. Before either of these two video vendors came out of beta, people were drooling.

Another article today from Billboard continues to shine the light on Joost, touting their advertising model and widgets. Since they aren’t out of beta, I find it a bit premature to tout much of anything yet. Until more people get to play, the jury is still out on Joost.

That said, I wouldn’t bet against them either.

Thanks, MSN. Just what we needed. Another YouTube knock-off. But in case you missed the announcement, MSN’s Soapbox is open to the public.

While still technically in Beta, MSN has provided us with another destination for watching the same clips that have been circulating virally and on YouTube. But since you went through all the trouble to build it, I’m sure we can find some more time to waste in the name of, ahem, research.

Overall, Soapbox doesn’t offer much different than Sharkle or YouTube. User provided, low quality video. Tagging. Sharing. Blah blah blah. Maybe we should look at it as a testing ground for MSN’s real video platform, which offers professional and promotional content that advertisers can spend real money on.

However, MSN’s main platform isn’t without faults either. As we speak, I’m watching the same Ford ad for the third straight time before the player is able to play any of the content from its playlist. Twice I was given the error message “the video you requested is not available right now.” Go figure. I shouldn’t have been trying to watch clips of Rod Stewart anyway. Screenshot below.

You can almost hear the Jack Bauer style counting down in the background. It seems like YouTube can’t get out of its own way at the moment. Blunder after blunder. Bad PR. Bad jokes at industry shmoozers.

Last week Viacom pulled more than 100,000 clips from the popular video portal, in a move that indicates big publishers of content getting back in the driver’s seat. And it appears to be not a moment to soon.

As reported by Reuters, YouTube seems to only be offering its anti-piracy tools to companies with distribution deals with the GooTube.

We aren’t suggesting that this is an easy problem to solve. But before Google bought up the ‘Tube, they seemed to be a lot friendlier in the sandbox. Their new, G-style negotiating tactics aren’t going over well with traditional media giants like Viacom, and most likely not with others.

As new platforms like Brightcove and Joost emerge from their betas, they’ll offer solid DRM and quality distribution for content owners, as well as monetization of their content. Real business models for real content owners will emerge from the primordial soup of today’s online video landscape. YouTube’s novelty will wear off, and it will be tomorrow’s punchline.

The real question to ask: With more and more companies entering our daily lexicon, will “YouTubed” come to mean “Jumping the Shark?”

It is confirmed by numerous sources that Launch.com founders Dave Goldberg and Bob Roback are leaving the company.

“After 13 years in this industry, Bob Roback and I look forward to going back to our entrepreneurial roots. I will help in the transition to new leadership,” said Goldberg in a statement.

Really only mentioning because this watcher’s first gig in online video was with Launch.com before their acquisition by Yahoo.

Just this morning, Viacom announced that it is making all of their videos available for people to post on their own sites.

Tick, tick, tick, tick. Is this YouTube’s 15 minutes of fame winding down? MySpace will continue to be the beneficiary, as people will still be able to take embed code and post it on their personal pages.

With all of the WYSIWYG site creators out there, and GoDaddy’s $1.99 domain names, I’m hoping that we’ll see more people hosting their own personal web pages, blogs and video, rather than turning to the Geocities2.0’s that currently hog the collective tween mindshare.

The battle between Viacom and YouTube rages on, this time with the Big V asking YouTube to remove more than 100,000 clips.

Viacom is taking control of their content, distributing their own embed code for clips from Comedy Central. CNET reported that experts believe this strategy is to find a “workaround” to the popular video sharing site. “Why is it better for people to consume our video on YouTube rather than my site?” Erik Flannigan, senior vice president of digital media for Comedy Central, asked CNET News.com.

Good for Viacom and Mr. Flannigan. They are finally starting to see the light, and hopefully leading the way for other content owners to take back what is rightfully theirs. More importantly - and a common theme here on OVW - Comedy Central and Viacom will not only be in control of their copyrights, but the quality of the video experience.

The YouTube experience has, to this point, lacked quality in its content. Users capturing video on their PCs from their DVRs using $79 video capture cards doesn’t result in a quality product. With Comedy Central in control, they can ensure that the level of quality meets their standards.

Additionally, by controlling the embed code, Viacom enables their broadcast and online advertisers to deliver branded messaging and ads along with those clips. ComedyCentral is already monetizing some of the content on their site with advertising, and video ad specialists Tremor Media and Nabbr have enabled other short form content, such as music videos, to be shared and monetized as clips are posted on personal web pages.

Unfortunately for Viacom, the vast amount of content on YouTube will make it difficult to filter out the home-brew clips. Additionally, users that don’t give a hoot about copyright will use the same tactics as they did when Napster began to limit the copyright infringement on its P2P network. Sure they pulled down the “Beatles” songs, but anyone searching for “Beetles” found plenty of songs from the Fab Four.

But my hat is off to Viacom for taking control of their own video strategy, and not kowtowing to YouTube’s power du jour.

Move Networks, mentioned earlier as the technology behind Fox’s fantastic streaming experience, has received $11.3 million in first-round venture capital funding from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Spend wisely.

CBS has opened up registration for VIP access to its March Madness on Demand featuring live broadband video of the first 56 games of March Madness. Last year, CBS delivered 19 million video streams. However, the quality was piss-poor. Sure you could watch a game that wasn’t on TV, and there’s plenty of demand for that, but even in a small window, you could barely follow the ball, let alone make out players’ numbers or names. But keep your fingers crossed for a better experience this year. (Damn, I’m pretty salty this week on video quality.)

Monday night I had a DVR crisis. A new episode of Two and a Half Men, the launch of Rules of Engagement, and “24″ were all on, and I had yet to cancel recording Heroes (a time filler while reruns of other shows aired.) So I missed “24.” Damnit.

So I turned to the web to catch up. I have watched other networks’ offerings before, and been brutally disappointed, as you can read in previous posts. But this time was different.

Watching “24″ on Fox’s official platform, I was amazed at the quality of the stream. Even at full screen, there was absolutely ZERO pixelation and not one break in the stream. In a complete surprise, I fully enjoyed watching an hour of television on my computer. Fox had one intro pre-roll ad and a companion unit which goes away when you switch to full screen mode.

As I learned this morning from some co-workers, the quality comes from Fox’s implementation of Move Network’s technology.

After realizing how high the quality was compared to my previous experiences with NBC’s Rewind offering, I decided to check back with NBC to see if there really was a difference. And there is. Screenshots to follow. here.

Additionally, NBC’s Rewind stopped to buffer on a number of occasions, despite breaking the show up into 5 minute segments. Also, a few times it seemed that NBC was trying to serve a mid-roll ad that would start for about 1 second, and then resume the programming. Maybe a delayed frequency cap? I can’t be sure.

While I appreciate all of the networks’ contributions to the online video world, and making it easier to catch up on missed shows, my hat is off to Fox for understanding the importance of the user experience and truly delivering.