While busy attending and covering the world of online video at this week’s OMMA Conference, I missed one of the most important political speeches given this season, and probably one of the most important speeches about race relations in this country since “I Have a Dream.”

Fortunately for all of us, the online video industry has advanced enough to deliver largely on its promise right now. I was easily able to find Sen. Obama’s speech from Tuesday night on MSNBC.com, and using my laptop to control my HTPC, play it on my TV. Just a few short months ago, this may not have been possible, at certainly not with the quality that the professional broadcasters and leading video sites have been able to deliver.

For bloggers of all types, it is becoming easier and easier for them to embed content from various sources, and bring not just opinions, but the content those opinions are based on, directly to readers. How many political bloggers will be embedding the full speech by Sen. Obama along with their commentary? After two days of digesting nothing but online video, it was nice to be able to come home and relish the idea that its not just hype.

For any of you who have heard me rant about widgets lately, you should know that I found some personal vindication tonight watching CNBC’s Fast Money when this little gem came on…

By the way, the show has plenty of web-extra video, including longer form clips of nearly every segment of that day’s show in their Rapid Recap.

Here’s a look at the widget for yourselves.

But for all of us in the industry, what is so tough to comprehend about widgets? Ok, you want a portable rich media unit that plays video and drives traffic back to your main site to sign up for newsletters or podcasts. And you want to measure total embeds, total minutes of video delivered across each distribution platform, sign-ups for the newsletters and downloads of podcasts. You’d like to look look at the average abandonment point where people are dropping off so you can trim the video segments to deliver an optimized user experience.

Which one of those are you going to call your primary success metric, secondary success metrics, and did you achieve them or not? At end end of the day, is the total number of minutes of video content of the “Fast Money” show viewed, aggregated across all of the platforms, the most important measure? If, after a week, there is a drop off of in watching video through the widget, is it a failure?

With all of these moving parts - which differ for each vertical category of advertisers and niche content - why are people looking for ‘one’ metric - engagement - to replace the universal CTR? I’m not suggesting that CTR should stick around, but we need to accept the fact that online media has gotten a lot more complicated than it ever has been, and we should treat it and talk about it as such. But I digress….

Nice job CNBC. Clean, functional widget that meets your goals. Too bad that co-host Jeff Macke called it a virus, and regular contributor Tim Seymour explained why it shouldn’t be called a widget to begin with. (Tim - I’m with you, buddy!) But I hope you factor that into account when you measure total downloads and evaluate the results.

This wasn’t even an online video story, except that MSNBC does a great job of making clips of stories, particularly their news shows, available.

I was catching up on my Sunday morning roundtable shows before the Oscars, and had to hear this??

I just watched the clip and decided to embed it here for the hell of it. Then Ralph Nader joining the race for president became an online video story. Guess how? The second time I watched the clip, I got the same 30-second pre-roll ad for Boeing. But Mr. Nader also promised that his website would be the most interactive of any presidential candidate. He’s got the basics, but he’s just quite there yet. Sign up and donate, or see his whole platform, but as of this writing, the links to Facebook, MySpace and YouTube don’t work. Maybe that’s why he’s advertising for some web development help on the site, too. But we like that he’s looking for some videographers. Dont forget to send those videos our way, Ralph!

The New York Times & business channel CNBC have teamed up to share video and news on each other’s sites, according to a report in the Times, covered by Reuters.

According to the story, Times articles will be posted on CNBC’s Web site, while CNBC video will appear on the Times’ website. The partnership is clearly aimed at taking on Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal / Fox Business News alliance.

Results are still coming in from the Iowa Caucus, beamed to digital billboards across the state, Iowa party websites and Google maps. Obama is the projected Democratic winner with Edwards and Clinton neck and neck in the battle for second place. CBS just projected Huckabee will be the Republican winner.

The Des Moines Register has teamed up with YouTube for video surrounding the caucus but live video streaming is wide open, leaving citizen jounalism site The UpTake and blogger Shelbinator to split the live audience online.

The UpTake Live Caucus Stream

Shelbinator Live Caucus Stream

Corey Adds: And I always enjoy a good media blunder, like Keith Olbermann calling David Schuster “David Gregory.”

MSNBC.com today launched the beta of their new online video player. Feeling more like a video portal, the player features a wide-screen aspect ratio and a sliding 300 x 250 companion banner that only appears during pre- and mid-roll ads.

Looks to me like they’ve leveraged some of the Hulu player. But head on over and let us know what you think.