Minnesota's local media sites, including TV, Newspapers, and Radio, are experimenting with video on the web based on the rationale that advertisers will pay a premium for video ads. A fair assumption.

However, one of the biggest problems I see with the online video offerings of media companies today is that they are being held back by their video content management systems, which tend to be much less feature rich that freely available alternatives.

Here is a quick list of 10 specs I would expect a company that's serious about running a business around online video:

1. Good quality audio

2. Flash video (not a proprietary player that won't work for all of your viewers)

3. Full screen option

4. Video that looks good full screen.

5. Related videos after a video finishes (you want to keep people around, right?)

6. Email-able video links

7. Embeddable video

8. Deep linkable video

9. Closed captions

10. RSS feeds for videos (lots of opportunity here)

Bonus: 11. Live video streams

Bonus 12: Live chats.

I don't know of a single mainstream media site that comes close to providing this level of technical support for their video content. Sadly, mainstream media sites are likely paying a boatload of cash for proprietary video CMS's rather than using free, feature-rich, platforms instead.

Want to increase views? Make it easy for people to link, email, embed, or RSS your videos. Let them know what else may interest them.

The closest to completing this list among Minnesota media companies is TheUptake.org, a non-profit company that relies on mostly free software to serve and manage their organization's video content. And someone else who has this figured out is Ben Higginbotham over at SpaceVidcast where he provides a ton of options for viewers to consume, interact, and share the content he and his audience creates.