Metacafe banks $30 million ... YouTube officially intros advertising ... Video search ... EZTakes gets friendly with the iPod ... Panel at Toronto

- Metacafe just raised another $30 million in venture capital. While no video site has really yet figured out a great way to integrate advertising with their videos, clearly that's what the investors are hoping here.

- YouTube will officially start selling ads in some of its videos, according to the Wall Street Journal. YouTube won't use pre-roll ads. Emily Steel writes:

YouTube...plans to sell these ads only on videos from its select content partners, whose original videos include professionally produced clips and user-generated content. The partners will earn a share of the ad revenue. The system is similar to Google's AdSense network, which matches ads to the content of a network of Web sites, and gives those sites a cut of the profits. YouTube, of San Bruno, Calif., has established revenue-sharing deals with more than 50 partners, including Ford Models and Warner Music Group Corp. YouTube declined to say what percentage of videos on its site comes from its content partners.

YouTube started testing its in-video ad format in June and July on more than 200 videos from 20 content providers, and found that 75% of viewers watched the entire ad. The ads had five to 10 times greater click-through rates than standard display ads that appear on Web sites, YouTube said. Other ad models are in the works.

- The Journal looks at four video search sites (Truveo/AOL, Google, Yahoo, and BlinkX) and seems to like Truveo best.

- Jim Flynn, CEO of the Massachusetts movie download site EZTakes, sent a note that his site is about to start selling videos that can play on Apple's iPod. "Consumers, who could already burn EZTakes downloads to playable DVDs, can now also enjoy their purchases on their Apple iPods, and just about any portable media player that they may own in the future," the press release says.

- The panel I'm doing at the Toronto International Film Fest next month, on how filmmakers can use social media, has filled out nicely. It'll include Jason Klein of Special Ops Media, Sandi DuBowski of Films that Change the World, Bill Holsinger-Robinson of Spout, Christine Moore of Myspace, and producer Corey Marr. It's on Saturday, September 8th. See you there?