Despite its rapid growth, online video has been plagued by monetization woes. But a new solution from Gorilla Nation, an online advertising representation firm, aims to address some of those concerns.

In the past year, online video has seen an explosion both in terms of content production and viewership. But that rapid growth hasn't translated into a bonanza of ad dollars. On the one hand, brand advertisers have expressed doubts about the viability of amateur content that dominates sites like YouTube, while at the same time a slew of technology companies have been looking for new ways to efficiently serve ads against video content.

YouTube, which has made monetization a top priority this year, recently put ad sales in the hands of its content creators, allowing producers like Revision3, the company responsible for Diggnation, to package ads around their content.

But YouTube's solution doesn't address concerns from brand advertisers, who worry that they may be sponsoring objectionable content. For those brands, there's always the option of an ad network buy. But most ad networks are closed, which means inappropriate content could still be a problem, leaving video buyers few options beyond site-specific buys.

One solution that could offer media buyers a more palatable option could be Springboard, a new feature that's part of Gorilla Nation's Mid Tail Tool Box. While the platform gives the publishers in Gorilla Nation's network control of the front end of the video player, it allows media buyers a single point of access to several hundred high-traffic, vetted sites.

Springboard works with Double Click's DFP ad serving platform, and it supports pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll and overlay ad units.

But beyond the technical details of ad serving, Gorilla Nation is betting that its video solution will embolden a class of mid-sized publishers to produce and syndicate brand-safe, professional-quality video. To do that, Gorilla Nation has setup an automated syndication program that allows its publishers to license video from each other. That could be a boon for advertisers, who are seeing a glut of video but a shortage of quality.