There’s an intriguing article in a recent issue of Advertising Age about the growing number of marketers who are directly engaging consumers through original content they and their agencies are creating.

In particular, video is identified as an increasingly popular way for marketers to get their messages directly to consumers and other influencers. Production and equipment costs have become more affordable, and opportunities to post the finished result are growing exponentially from YouTube to Facebook to web sites and blogs.

While it’s still valuable for clients to be featured in magazines and newspapers -- it's hard to replace the implied third-party endorsement value -- it’s good to know that marketers and agencies have exciting new options.

Anyone who saw the last episode of The Sopranos, or consumed any news source in the weeks that followed, knows the series ended with Tony, Carmela and the kids sitting in a booth at a New Jersey diner -- with ominous figures all around.

Now, the Hillary Clinton campaign has done its own YouTube take on the series finale.

It's funny. It works. And it shows just how great a medium the web has become for communicating with varied audiences.

Bada Bing! (Psst: That's Johnny Sac at the counter...)

The word is out that major broadcast players are looking at a new venture to challenge YouTube, which has turned web video into a mainstream distribution medium virtually overnight.

There's a post from the TechCrunch blog that talks about a possible announcement:

There have been rumors of a TV network led joint venture to compete with YouTube for months -- the first time we heard it was just a couple of days after the first rumor of Google’s acquisition of the company. Since then, we’ve heard that discussions stalled as one partner or another pulled out of the group.