CBS has announced that it is partnering with at least 13 "leading community-building websites and social application providers" to allow its users to incorporate clips in their pages at these sites.

I think this is a great step by CBS toward embracing what I have termed the "clip culture."

Our Q4 '06 report on the broadcast industry and broadband video concluded that to date, the networks have looked at broadband as simply a new distribution path for existing programming. While this is a significant opportunity, another big one is using the broadband medium to redefine the kind of programming they offered and how fans could engage with it.

Since traditional networks are steeped in 30 and 60 minute thinking, they've been slow to recognize how powerful short (i.e. 2 minute'ish clips) are online. YouTube exploited networks' reticence, with users uploading tons of networks' clips (albeit without permission, but that's another story).

The language of the CBS press release is a little vague, but it suggests that CBS will determine which clips users can embed. This is a great start. While this announcement is a positive, it doesn't appear to go far enough in allowing users to actually create their own clips for embedding. That would be the ideal. Hopefully that's coming next. That's what today's users want.