It may only be 15 degrees outside in the Windy City; but inside Day 1 of the Search Engine Strategies conference, subjects such as online video seem to already be hot topics for discussion. WebProNews kicks off its SES coverage this week with Chris Richardson behind the microphone. Chris is joined by Ben Wills, an online marketing consultant and owner of BenWills.com, who gives his initial impression of this morning’s sessions pertaining to online video.In his chat with WebProNews, Ben immediately starts with the recognition that the realm of video search is increasing at an exponential rate. Businesses are going to have to adapt to climate of online video in order to continually develop innovative and contextually relevant marketing campaigns geared toward the digital consumer. A controversial method that Ben touches on is the use of multiple MySpace profiles laden with promotional video, a tactic designed to inundate search results with the maximum amount of video content possible. The debate lingers on whether or not this practice is little more than a spam tactic, or can be reluctantly categorized as “grey hat” in terms of marketing optimization.Online video is not just an avenue of expression for the vlogger anymore. With companies like AOL making their online video APIs available for businesses and marketers alike, the potential for reaching an attentive and established consumer base is too lucrative to ignore. The market is changing, and consumers have adopted a multimedia approach to their online life. By the same token, businesses will have to adapt their current marketing approaches to integrate search, display, and video advertising concepts to appeal to the emerging multimedia client. Internet users consume information via multiple platforms, and marketers will have to proactively develop new methods of utilizing each of them in concert, especially online video, to target the new age consumer.