No real reason to post this other than The Star Ledger, New Jersey’s main newspaper, posted it with their review of Bruce Springsteen’s show on Monday night.

OVW is headed to Giant Stadium tonight with our cohorts from MediaPost to catch The Boss in action.

Actually, this does support Gannett’s investment in Mogulus, and shows how online video is changing the newspaper, and overall publishing, industries. No matter how good a writer you are, no music review compares to hearing the music for yourself.

I guess nobody is immune from consolidation. Today, Forrester Research announced that it has acquired JupiterResearch for $23 million plus liabilities.

On Jupiter analyst that OVW spoke with was very excited about the merger and predicts very solid synergies.

Integrated Media Measurement, Inc. (IMMI) has issued a report showing that up to 20% of episodic content viewing occurs online, depending on the genre of the content and the amount of time the show has been on the air. In a some cases i is higher than DVR viewing of the broadcast content.

Download the full report.

Some of the more striking data shows that online viewing is flat out replacing TV, not just catching shows you missed or clips that you wanted to watch again. Another key difference showed that white, affluent, well educated, working women aged 25 to 44 were the dominant viewers of online TV content, compared to the male 18-25 demo that is typically associated with online video. To me, this signals the shift away from the UGC fad into higher quality, professionally produced content.

Video streaming platform Mogulus has received an investment from Gannett, estimated to be around $10 million, according to TechCrunch.

Here’s the full profile on Mogulus on Techrunch’s CrunchBase. But the person who can explain it best would be OVW’s own Ben Homer.

I’m sure when he digs himself out from all that money, he can shed more light on the deal.

Ben Adds: CEO Max Haot breaks it down better than I could. And Mogulus is hiring.

While the industry is buzzing more about consolidation than expansion of the video ad network landscape lately, another player - and quite a serious one - is jumping into the mix.

Normally I’d be inclined to ignore the news, and brush it off as another company trying to make a few bucks buying inventory from other networks and reselling it. But I’m sure thats not the case here.

Ad Network vet Joe Apprendi is adding video to the already impressive list of capabilities for his Collective Media Network.

According to the press release, the Collective Video network will offer in-stream ads including pre-roll and overlays.

Welcome to the video space, Joe! Too bad I’m going to have to kill you now.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, NBC and NFL will stream Sunday Night Football.

“Sunday Night Football Extra,” will offer the Al Michaels/John Madden audio stream, additional camera angles, and the ability to watch multiple video streams and in-game highlights. I’m picturing something similar as MLB.com’s MLBTV Premium, which allows you to watch up to 6 games simultaneously.

CBS has launched their new HD Video portal with plenty of CBS content to enjoy. A quick view of a few shows on the laptop confirms that the content looks clear, sharp and doesn’t stutter. Looking forward to checking it out on the big screen as usual.

But, wait. What about the ads? I’m glad you asked. Either CBS doesn’t have an HD version of the ads they are using, or are streaming in the ads from a different platform. The ad I saw was so fuzzy that I could barely read the text in it. A second version of the ad was also undeniably low-def.

So what gives? From my perch, I know for a fact that there is demand for online HD content for advertisers to run their HD ads in. Could be some A-B testing going on, but all the ads I’ve seen so far are fuzzy.

Solid ad strategy as well. The first pre-roll is only :15 seconds. Once you are into the content, the ads become :30s. Smart. Why? You’ve already got them hooked, and there’s still fewer ads than on TV. Solid value prop.

Ben Adds: The player offers two quality settings - 720P HD and 480i which CBS terms HQ (High Quality). It looks like the ads are in 480i resolution which would explain the distortion. Intel has signed on as a sponsor so what you’ll see is an Intel ad delivered by CBSi.

On a user-experience note, I just became a fan of Flashpoint, it was the first thing I watched and I was compelled enough that I watched the full episode and the next one because of the quality of the video and the content. CBS hasn’t offered much info about how the video is delivered but you can’t argue with the way it looks.

Combe Incorporated’s VP of Interactive Communications Tom Cunniff recently launched a blog about consumer packaged goods marketing. Get inside his head at iCPG, “Consumer Packaged Goods, Outside the Box.” Catchy title, too.

Tom’s post, “Modern Marketing, An Allegory” explains why the video below contains everything you need to know about online marketing.

Ok, so maybe there’s a little more you should know, but it is definitely a good start!

Need an expert? Want some PR pros to pitch you their goods and services? Head on over to Help A Reporter, make your request, and sit back and wait for a flood of information.

The LA Times reports today that Netflix will shut down their independent film division Red Envelope. Led by head of acquisitions Liesl Copeland it offered a completely independent channel for distributing DVDs to a base of millions, without studios, no small thing.

This may be the right move financially, but it’s a blow to independent producers considering the few remaining indy film studios are already in bad shape. Copeland acquired a number of award winning films including Born Into Brothels which would not otherwise have reached the audiences they did.