Awards at the International CES 2012 abounded with the first ever International Academy of Web Television awards. Clips represented 16 different countries and come from some of the best online content available, exemplifying the web’s strength – content that viewer’s can’t get anywhere else. Among the IAWTV awards presented at the International CES 2012, The Guild, The Mercury Men and What’s Trending with Shira Lazar each took multiple trophies.

There is lots of other great content to be seen here, and what better way to find it than the best distribution platform: Blip.tv - this website brings many of the winners into one place. You’re sure to find something entertaining, and if not, at least worth sharing. There are hours to be spent watching the best hosted live web series, What’s Trending with Shira Lazar or laughing with the best comedy web series The Guild. If you like special features, the best supplemental content belongs to The Mercury Men. Mercury Men Pictures presents you with lots of extras including behind the scenes with visual effects, props, even retro trading cards. The quality of the content is unmistakably resemblant of online video.

The voting members had a tough job of sifting through such original content and coming out with decisions on 33 awards, including 9 categories for web series.  Two weeks to the day, the live broadcast from Las Vegas aired on their special site, and though the broadcast appears to be a first attempt at live view into an awards ceremony… that’s what it is. The waiting time for the broadcast treated viewers to clips from many of the nominees, and during the show, what really shines are the samples of web television. The content is sometimes shocking since there are fewer guidelines for these producers to follow, so plan accordingly for things such as language and a tampon reference.

With many of the categories including series, expect audiences to expand in number and some series to land on cable networks. Next year’s IAWTV awards are sure to be even more exciting, and maybe some of our readers will join the ceremonies.

Advertising Age has a very interesting story about what could become the future of the typical TV network. Just announcing a host of new distribution deals, blip.tv will now be working with YouTube, NBC, the Roku set-top box and Vimeo to create the widest online sharing distribution that currently exists. Blip.tv already works with Verizon Fios, web-connected Sony TVs, Apple’s iTunes, AOL, MSN, Facebook and Myspace. They also announced that YouTube would be sharing analytics with them, in turn given them the chance to feed into ComScore. The whole process will result in creating more accurate metrics for potential advertisers.

This is big news for the future of online video and blip.tv fans. Already the site has over 48,000 exclusive web shows, and this will help blip.tv use their niche market web shows to aim advertisements to the right demographic. Blip.tv is well on it’s way to becoming it’s own TV network, giving viewers the option of choosing exactly what they want to see.

If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s a new weekly online show that focuses on the world of video production and post-production called That Media Show.

The show comes in fairly fragmented news bites, focusing on film, television shows, software and hardware.  But it’s a handy way to get your video news for the week as a roll through of press releases, presented in an easy to consume info-tainment format. I know that doesn’t sound exactly flattering, but trust me, it works.

Check out That Media Show for yourself. Available on Blip.tv or on iTunes.