Sometime during the 8 hours of pre-pre-red carpet coverage, check out the finalists of the Dove Body Wash Ad contest over on the Oscars site.

As anyone with a broadband connection knows by know, Dove’s “Real Women” video and following ad campaign has been nothing short of a spectacular success, and they’ve continued to find smart ways to keep the mojo flowing.

The five finalists’ videos are on the site, and you can vote for your favorite. Two will be chosen to be aired tonight, and Oscar viewers will be able to choose the ultimate winner during the show.

You can see all of the submissions at dovecreamoil.com. There’s nearly 1300 submissions, so you won’t have to suffer through Ryan Seacrest asking, “Who are you wearing?”

My only criticism of the contest is that the submissions aren’t embeddable. I’m sure there are some legal reasons behind that, but if you ‘really’ liked an ad and wanted to get your friends to vote for it, too, I’d have made them viral, too.

Still my favorite (and not part of the promo)

The NFL is extending its exclusive coverage of the NFL combine today with free live video on NFL.com. From 11am to 2pm ET on Saturday football fans will be able to choose from five different cameras in addition to watching live NFL Network coverage.

In an unrelated story, DISH Network earlier this week bumped the NFL Net to a premium sports tier, cutting off an additional 4 million or so fans from the service. In the midst of the ongoing NFL Network-MSO battle, DISH was apparently unhappy over the NFL’s decision to make this Season’s Pats-Giants game available to multiple networks.

Google continues to offer publishers new ways to monetize video leveraging their AdSense platform. Today Google announced new partners in the AdSense for video beta program including Brightcove, Tremor Media, Blip.TV and YuMe, to name a few of the 20 partners.

Publishers in the beta program will be able to choose between overlay ads featuring either text content or graphical ads that will be contextually targeted to the video content and web page.

Standing in between me and a vodka tonic is VideoEgg’s Troy Young, introducing their new AdFrames Network, a performance based ad offering specifically built for brand advertisers seeking engagement. It distributes rich media and video on social networks. But here’s the cool part - advertisers pay only for engagement. CPE.

Find out more at VideoEgg.com/adframes.

To the bar!

Stanford law professor, and internet thought leader Lawrence Lessig has announced via online video that he is looking into running for congress in California’s 12th district.

He has done so by launching a new-media style exploratory committee. An online video announcement, a website, Lessig08.org, and a Facebook group: Draft Lessig, through which people can show their support.

In addition, he announced what he calls the Change Congress Movement, a coalition he is seeking to form based on three ideas:

1. Individually not take any money from lobbyists or PACs
2. Vote to ban earmarks in the Congressional appropriations process.
3. Support public financing of campaigns.

As CEO of Creative Commons Lessig has led the charge for openness as it relates to political campaigns and the internet. Most recently he championed the importance of making presidential debate footage freely available online. Larry, if you run, we’re with you.

DailyMotion’s decision to offer HD online video delivery is again raising questions about the value of delivering high quality content online.

TV, to those in the business of making money from it, is a medium for delivering advertising to consumers. Compelling content drives the audience and HD video is only valuable to the extent it increases revenue potential for those delivering content.

For broadcasters, HD carries intrinsic complexities in the form of workflow changes and system upgrades to deliver high quality content but once those have been implemented there are no incremental costs based on the number of viewers.

Because of the incremental costs associated with volume of online content delivery, the value proposition for HD online video is an entirely different beast.

Content is still king. Consumers will watch programming that interests them in whatever format it is available. And because professional content is tightly controlled by those who produce it, there are only two reasons a profit-driven company would decide to offer HD content online:

a) A marketer is willing to pay more to advertise on HD content
b) Enough viewers are willing to pay to view the content in HD.

So far those beginning to offer HD video online appear to be hoping for option A to make it worth their while. Move Networks‘ HD player has increased engagement, and advertisers are paying a premium to reach online viewers as a result. ESPN 360’s addition of HD shows Disney’s belief in the value HD video online, when done well.

Aside from porn sites, no one is offering option B. A number of sites offer subscription content, but most offer lower quality content.That’s what most end-users can view and the content itself is what is driving subscription sales. MLB.com offers users an option to pay a higher subscription rate for higher-bitrate video; the cost has to be passed on to the end user for it to make sense.

And so DailyMotion follows Vimeo in offering HD to end users. While itwill generate buzz, possibly a few more views, and a few more seconds of viewing time, the content and user experience offered by these sites will need to be much improved before it is worthwhile.

Does anyone care whether we call it a “podcast” or an “mp3″ of something? I’m currently browsing the Zune Marketplace looking for some new podcasts, but I realized its mostly short versions of traditional media (The Today Show Podcast), and the usual, mass distributed webisodes like Ask A Ninja.

My question….does the “buzzword” get in the way of peope’s understanding of the medium? People are asking about widgets without knowing what they are or how to measure their success. Seems a little “horse before the cart” to me. And now looking at all the podcasts available from Zune Marketplace and iTunes, are people really confused by their nomenclature? Or do they get the fact that anyone can make an audio recording of video interview available for download to be viewed on multiple devices? I’m not actually planning on watching HBO’s “In Treatment” on my Zune. I plan on watching on my PC, but Ill grab it through the Zune Marketplace….for free.

Not sure why this is bugging me, other than the fact that I need different settings for downloading and syncing my podcasts than my regular music. PITA.

Same with widgets. Will someone please bring a little thought into the process? Or just admit they want to dabble with a new medium.

What are you using to tag your audio files these days, anyway? I’ve spent most of this weekend updating and standardizing album art and setlists so they play in chronological order while maintaining my preferred file naming convention (artist/album/song - artist.mp3).

End holiday rant.

Ok, so it dawned on me that maybe you want to escape work life for the weekend, not dig in deeper. So if more online advertising chat isn’t how you envisioned spending Sunday, don’t forget that this weekend marks the 50th running of the Daytona 500, kicking of the NASCAR season.

Why do they have their superbowl as the first event of the season anyway?

Before they drop the green flag, head on over to their video galleries and get to know some of the drivers. Then you’ll be ready to sit on your sofa, or in your RV, crack open that can of Bud, and watch the race “in the know.” Besides, its a whole lot easier than trying to figure out the rules to football. “Go fast, turn left, repeat.”

While we like Dale Jr., OVW is pulling for Jamie McMurray, driving the Roush / Fenway Racing car, sponsored by Crown Royal. Our good friends handle the promo and marketing for Crown Royal’s NASCAR efforts as well as all the video for Crown Royal TV.

If you want to get into the head of one of online video’s (and online advertising in general) biggest brains, check out the latest DishyMix podcast from Susan Bratton. This week, she interviews Adam Gerber, CMO of Quantcast, an audience measurement company.

Adam was previously at Brightcove as their Vice President for Advertising Products and Strategy and is one of the smartest and most passionate people about online video.

Here’s what Susan had to say about Adam:

Adam Gerber has been a leader in the digital marketing space since it’s inception. He’s been an evangelist, a pioneer, spending solid budgets on digital media on behalf of his blue chip clients. He’s a believer. He’s amazingly smart. He’s a great man and you’ll enjoy knowing him better in this entertaining and informational interview. You’ll grow. You’ll learn. Enjoy!

For those of you who don’t know, DishyMix is a podcast featuring “Juicy Interviews with Famous Internet and Media People”, and hosted by Susan Bratton, in her own right a very famous internet and media person. We industry folks dig her…a lot. She is also the Chair Emeritus of ad:tech Expositions, the leading conference for digital marketers. She’s one of those people that everyone wants to know, and says they do. But thats not enough. You want her - NEED her - to know you. (Editorial Note: Not pandering. Susan and I know each other and have mutual friends. In fact, I was discussed in a recent DishyMix podcast. I just respect her that much and her hubby is cool, too. He invented Rhapsody, my personal choice for online music subscription services.)

So give a listen over the long weekend. And catch up on some of her previous podcasts while you’re there. Hell, its a long weekend. You don’t want to spend it all on YouTube.

Saul Hansell of the New York Times is reporting that Google has begun testing video ads on their search pages.

“The big insight of Google wasn’t text ads; it was that the ads should be conducive to the format. We were doing text-based search that was all textual. Visual ads don’t work in that format,” Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience told Saul in their interview.

“We don’t want all sorts of video and banner ads all over the site all the time,” Ms. Mayer said. “People who advertise a movie want to show a trailer. Why shouldn’t they have the same format we use for search results and have a little plus box that says watch the trailer?”

Google will be slowly introducing video ads with a small “plus sign” icon next to search results that contain video, according to Hansell’s Bits Blog. Google has been testing multiple ways to leverage video, including YouTube’s overlay graphical ads. Video units were introduced to AdSense in October. Rest assured, this won’t be the last video development for AdSense.