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YouTube is, by far, the most popular online video service, but we actually know very little about how bloggers use the service to embed videos on their own sites. Sysomos, the Toronto-based social media analytics and monitoring firm, just took a closer look at how the blogosphere links to and embeds YouTube videos. Overall, the company analyzed over 2.5 million YouTube videos that were embedded in blog posts between July and December 2009.

There's no doubting the impact of social media on our day-to-day lives in 2010. In the western world, most big brands have Facebook and Twitter accounts nowadays, many TV journalists "write a blog" about their beat every day, and services like YouTube are widely consumed. However it's the rise of social media as a tool for social activitism that has really brought these technologies to the fore. Sometime over the past year, it reached the point where some governments became threatened by social media and started cracking down on it. China has been the most high profile example recently.

But does the Chinese government really care about Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as much as we in the west think they do?

In January, the Austria-based company Mobilizy updated the Android version of its mobile augmented reality browser Wikitude to include a new feature they dubbed "Worlds," which are similar to the layers found in the alternatively popular Layar AR browser. On Thursday Wikitude 2.0 for the iPhone (version 4 on Android) was released on the iTunes App Store, brining these new Worlds to the iPhone.

YouTube announced today that it will provide its users with a "video speed dashboard", which shows them not only their average speed, but the speed of other users for comparison.

Last night, YouTube added a new filtering mechanism called "Safety Mode" to the popular video sharing website used by millions. This option allows you to filter out the sort of videos you may find offensive, whether that's those featuring adult content or violence or some other objectionable content. It will even filter out profanity from the YouTube comments.

Using the new setting found at the bottom of any YouTube video page, you can switch Safety Mode on or off. And while parents will certainly be tempted to do so in an attempt to enable parental control mechanisms for the site, they should be warned that even the least tech-savvy youngster can easily shut this new feature in a minute or less.

The Italian government is moving ahead with its plans to hold YouTube accountable for its users' copyright infringements. According to new regulations that have recently been proposed by the Italian government, YouTube would have to get a TV license to operate in Italy. Should Italy move ahead with this regulation, YouTube would have to follow the same rules and regulations as traditional broadcast channels. These new rules would eliminate the "safe harbor" rules that currently shield services like YouTube.

Just to put the numbers into perspective, with its recent earnings from entering the online movie rental business, YouTube couldn't even afford one minimum-wage, full-time employee. But it's not a bad start, nonetheless, and the best news may be for the filmmakers themselves.

When YouTube announced the move two weeks ago, we mused over whether or not people would be willing to pay for content, as is always the question. For a relatively quick, quiet test campaign, we would venture that YouTube certainly outpaced Newsday, with its 35 online subscribers.

Switzerland-base development and design firm Jilion recently launched a site demonstrating their latest project, SublimeVideo, an HTML5-based video player. Although not publicly available as of yet, this sleek, fast, and plug-in free video player shows off the potential of the upcoming web standard HTML5.

If you've been wondering what the future of web video looks like, look no further than here.

Both YouTube and the White House announced today that this year's State of the Union address will be broadcast on the YouTube channel Citizentube, as well as streamed live and broadcast to your iPhone. In addition to these Internet broadcasts, both announced that the average Joe or Jane Citizen would get a chance to ask the president some questions this time around, by way of a contest on Google Moderator.

Sounds like a great day for Internet democracy, right? We wonder if crowdsourcing is the way to get the hard-hitting, journalistic questions delivered to the president's doorstep or if it will turn into yet another Internet meme. And even if the right questions get asked, will the format result in just another rehearsed, prepackaged answer?

While social media is often touted as a great lead generator and brand management tool, it can also help bad coverage spread like wildfire. Last year, two disgruntled North Carolina employees made an in-store gross-out video where they tampered with Domino's Pizza orders. Despite the fact that the employees were fired, Domino's was dealt a major blow as the brand was tarnished and all efforts to recover were met with criticism. Video aggregator Yubby is about to launch a solution that helps startups mitigate the risk of brand-damaging videos.