A few weeks back I wondered out loud on this blog who is going to win the battle for eyeballs in the online video professional content world. Today, I popped by an interesting presentation from Microsoft about “3 screens” (TV, Laptop, mobile device) and where video is heading in 2008. It was a good discussion on how video is being viewed. One thing is for sure, with more screens comes more video viewing. TV viewing is not being replaced, but supplemented across these devices (more video being watched). The presentation got me thinking about 3 key video challenges for brands

1. How do you find the best context mix across all these devices? Boy, knowing your consumers media habits is key. We must understand consumer media habits deeper than ever to get this mix right!

2. How best to extend the story across these devices? The idea of transmedia storytelling came along a few years ago and has caught on in some categories. My favorite TV series Lost does this pretty well. Side Note: My wife and I are absolutely addicted to this series and I am constantly going back to the ABC website for nuggets. Extended storytelling is hard, though, as it takes real commitment and serious campaign vision…will be interesting to watch this development over the next few years. Here are more thoughts (adpulp article)

3. Content, content, content: Everyone is talking about this, but who is walking the talk? Developing good content (e.g. branded content) is still very hard and again seems like a “faith based initiative” (to quote Avinash Kaushik) to many. Plus branding people like me love to stamp their brand everywhere which is not as easy in this space.