Sites like Hulu and the increasing adoption of media players such as the Apple TV are showing consumer desire (and willingness) to experience original content in new ways. This has not been lost on former NBC and Universal co-chair Ben Silverman, who has formed a new studio called Electus.

The studio is an effort to connect content creators with advertisers. Think product placement – taken to the next level.

This, of course, NEEDS to happen. With so many people fast-forwarding through commercials or catching episodes on the internet, content needs a new way to monetize as it is finding new ways to be distributed.

Enter Yahoo!, who has announced a new partnership with Electus (which by the way has been created in a partnership with Barry Diller’s IAC, parent company of Ask.com).

The partnership is designed to create original content to be distributed on the web. Other than that, details are vague. But it should be interesting to see how Yahoo! incorporates this new opportunity with their other advertising opportunities.

For example, when a new piece of content launches, I’m thinking we’ll see a bunch of display ads on the Yahoo! network promoting the content.

Additionally, with Yahoo!’s pursuit of Internet-on-the-TV partnerships, their multi-screen approach will be one to watch.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Carol Bartz graded her first year as Yahoo!’s CEO. She gave herself a B minus.

That’s probably a fair grade.

Bartz did finally get the search deal with Microsoft done. But the deal hasn’t been implemented yet and their search market share has fallen quite a bit.

Yahoo! stock has recovered a bit from 2008, when Jerry Yang failed to take advantage of Microsoft’s generous offers. But there is still recovery to be made.

2010 presents Bartz with plenty of challenges, including beginning to execute the Microsoft deal – and continuing to building on Yahoo!’s strengths as a media company. With Bartz’s dedication and high standards, she’s likely to turn that B minus to an A plus in no time.

Baidu’s chief operating officer Dr. Peng Ye is resigning his post, effective immediately. The departure is related to personal reasons and no replacement has yet been named.

“We thank Peng for his contributions to the company over the last two years and wish him all the best in his future endeavors,” said Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li.

That’s not the only change occurring in Baidu’s executive ranks. Haoyu Shen has been promoted from vice president of business operations to senior vice president. Zhan Wang has been promoted from senior director of business products to vice president.

“Haoyu and Zhan have proven track records in driving our business success and I am excited to see them make further contributions in their expanded roles,” said Li.

Way back when (in internet time) when ClickZ launched its merry band of internet marketing pioneers, one Jim Sterne was amongst them. And now he’s back!

And we’re delighted to have you back on board, Jim!

Over the years Jim Sterne and I have spoken at a gazillion online marketing events. And not only is Jim one of the original online marketing masters, he’s one of the nicest guys in the industry to hang out with.

So heads-up, Jim’s first new column is here and be sure to subscribe to receive his industry musings on a regular basis.

Fellow Brit ClickZ columnist Neil Mason with me and the great man himself, Jim Sterne.

Last night at the 2010 CES in Las Vegas, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took to the stage to deliver his keynote address. He, of course, included Bing in his speech, noting one important announcement regarding the newbie search engine.

Bing will be set as default on HP devices in 42 countries. Additionally, MSN will be set as default as the homepage in the agreement.

Yahoo! is expanding their foray into television by creating a wider availability of their TV Widget Engine. They’ve announced new partnerships with Vizio, Hisense, ViewSonic, MIPS Technologies and Sigma Designs to include Yahoo!’s TV Widgets in their consumer devices and technologies.

New widgets are being added to the program, including ones from content providers such as The Weather Channel, NBC, Napster, and DailyMotion.

Last but not least, Yahoo! is opening up their TV Widget program to developers by releasing the Widget Development Kit (WDK).

“Consumers are in love with their televisions, watching more TV, and demanding Internet connectivity to further enhance their viewing experience,” said Arlo Rose, senior director of Yahoo! Connected TV.

While many execs in the TV biz have worried that the Internet will put a dent in television, that simply hasn’t been the case. If you keep up with ratings news on sites like TV By the Numbers, you know that many networks are having record years.

Additionally, new devices enhance the viewing experience. While online video is hot, it makes sense that consumers will want to view such content on the best screen possible. Companies like Yahoo! are trying to stay ahead of the game.

“Yahoo! is leading the connected TV market by bringing a rich variety of Internet content and services to the living room — incorporating video on demand, social networks, games, online shopping, and more — making it easy for consumers to personalize their TV viewing experience,” said Rose.

While machine-generated translation is a worthwhile goal, it’s not always perfect. Google is attempting to make up for the gap by adding chat to its Translator Toolkit.

The chat works like IM in Gmail. You can type messages to your contacts and groups directly from Translator Toolkit regarding questions you may have about a translation issue.

If you’re not interested in using chat, you can turn it off in the Translator Toolkit settings.

During the holidays, a few search-related business dealings were going on. Google wants to buy video compression company On2. Their initial offering was 0.0001 shares of Google Class A common stock for every share of On2 stock. Shareholders were hesitant, so Google has returned to the bargaining table with an additional 15 cents in cash per share. As a result, shares of On2 were up 15 cents today.

Meanwhile, on December 22, ReachLocal filed for an IPO. ReachLocal is an online marketing company that provides a platform to manage search and display ad campaigns across a variety of networks.

While many of the specifics of the IPO are being ironed out, the company is planning for its IPO to sell up to $100 million of stock. Revenue for the first nine months of 2009 came in at $143 million, up 38% versus 2008. The company made $11.7 million in profits during that time.

If you’ve visited Facebook in the past two days, you may have noticed your friends posting a color as their status.

Black.

Pink.

Purple.

A meme is going around encouraging women to post the color of the bra they’re wearing. Supposedly, it’s designed to raise breast cancer awareness.

But many are thinking it’s the color of your underwear. And they have no idea why it’s being posted. So now you have dudes posting funny updates about their undies or lack thereof.

Many who have learned what the original meme is about have suggested boxer color updates for men and prostate cancer awareness.

I’m a thyroid cancer survivor – so I say post the color of your scarf. (Actually, it *is* thyroid awareness month. So, do please check your neck.)

The bra color meme seems to have its roots in the Detroit area. But there’s no real “control” to this viral campaign. Unfortunately, though this began with good intentions, it’s reminiscent of what ultimately drove people away from MySpace.

Image by SESConferenceSeries via Flickr

Avinash Kaushik, author, blogger, and Analytics Evangelist for Google, is one of my heroes. And he’s giving the morning keynote at SES London 2010 as well as one of the keynotes at SES New York 2010.

If you want to learn web analytics the right way, I strongly recommend that you read “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” by Kaushik (Sybex, 2007). His thought-provoking analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing today’s web analytics challenges conventional wisdom and debunks popular myths.

And Kaushik has a new book that has just been published that is entitled Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity (Sybex, 2009). In this book, he lays out specific strategies and execution models to evolve from simply leveraging clickstream tools to incorporating the insightful elixir of qualitative data, experimentation and testing, and competitive intelligence tools.

If you like Kaushik’s books, then you’ll love his blog, Occam’s Razor. He also has a day job as the analytics evangelist for Google. And on the swing shift, he’s the cofounder and chief education officer for Market Motive, where I’m on the faculty.

I should disclose that we don’t always see eye to eye. He is, regrettably, a Buckeye from The Ohio State University, while I am a Wolverine from the University of Michigan. However, I only hold that against him on one Saturday each November.

The other 364 days a year, I totally share his point of view.

As a thought leader, Kaushik puts a common sense framework around the often frenetic world of web research and analytics, and combines that with this philosophy that investing in talented analysts is the key to long term success. He is also a staunch advocate of listening to the consumer, and is committed to helping organizations unlock the value of web data.

If you want to learn how analytics has changed and what you need to do to keep up in 2010, register for the upcoming SES webcast with Kaushik, which will be held Tuesday, January 12, 2010, at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST. Mike Grehan, SES Advisory Board Co-Chair and VP, Global Content Director, Incisive Media, will kick things off by asking Kaushik some provocative questions before asking the audience to join in the Q&A. As a special promotion, Kaushik will give out six free copies of “Web Analytics 2.0″ to the participants who ask the most compelling questions during the webcast!

And if you want to see what he has to say about web analytics, check out the two video interviews below. I conducted the first interview at SES New York 2008.

Web Analytics Recap with Avinash Kaushik at SES NY 2008

The next video interview with Kaushik was conducted by Bryan Eisenberg at SES San Jose 2008. Eisenberg will also be one of the keynote speakers at SES London 2010.

Avinash’s Long Tail Terms, Bouncy Icebergs, and Analytics

So, run, don’t walk, to the Search Engine Strategies conference nearest you. You’ll want to hear everything that Kaushik has to say in his keynote…unless, of course, he gives a shout-out to the Buckeyes.