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Mark Cuban has an interesting post that is claimed to be some behind the scenes information on how the Google/YouTube deal went down, and the involvement of the major labels/studios.

It’s an interesting read, if only to show just how complex, and clever, a deal can be to protect large media companies interests.

What will be most fascinating to me is how YouTube members will react over time. Is this really a grass-roots web site, or has it turned into a main stream media distribution channel? If it is the later, will members defect to smaller more “indie” sites. Or do most users care little about these battles, and will they continue to use YouTube because of it ease of use and breadth.

It’s fascinating watching the money trail, but I find the social implications, and crowd mentality the real interesting dynamic.

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I’d just like to point out that I did make the call, 52 days ago, that Eskimo Joe would win Single of the Year, for “Black Fingernails, Red Wine.”

Tonight they won exactly that at the ARIA Awards.

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Steve Gillmor wrote a blog post the other day that almost had me resurrect myself from a stomach bug and post a response. But hell, I just didn’t have the energy. However, when I read Heather Green’s response today I figured I was going to have to weigh in.

Essentially Steve’s point was that television is dead.

What Steve should have said, and Heather points out, is that “linear” television is dead. Heather calls it “appointment TV, broadcast TV the way we knew it, the type of TV production of the past.” The TV of old, the one we had to schedule our lives around, is dead.

In fact I’d argue, that out of all the major old media/mediums, television and the networks have responded the quickest and in more compelling ways than any other have to the Internet.

Take Ron Moore’s Battlestar Podcasts. Other than the fact that episode four of season three marks a pinnacle in television, the podcast is just so damn good. Who else sits down with a packet of cigarets and glass of scotch and provides a running commentary each of week of the behind the scenes. How transparent and 2.0 is that!

Take Chaser’s War, one of Australia’s best comedy shows in well over a decade. For the later part of the recent season you could subscribe to their RSS feed and have the weekly episode on your iPod within a day of the show airing on the ABC.

Take The OC, a show that’s a little out of my demographic, but according to this panel interviewed by Guy Kawasaki right smack in Gen Y. MySpace just announced it’ll be releasing the show a full week before it airs on Fox.

Just wait for a few innovative ways of shows tapping into the audience in real time. We’ll be seeing some pretty remarkable ways for people to create a series. Imagine a season of Lost that you can control. Maybe we’d know what they hell it all meant by the end, or maybe we’d be more confused.

I’ve only covered a few areas where I think television is excelling in it’s embrace of the Internet. Give me a short time and I’ll continue the list. There is no doubt that just blatting out a weekly show to the airwaves is dead, but it’s rapidly being replaced by a new way of “casting.” iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, Digg, and the “next big thing” are all just extending the reach, not killing television.

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I just saw the new Bravia advertisement on television. I heard about this a couple of months ago while appreciating the last one, and couldn’t wait to see the final result. It’s as good, actually probably better, then the last. Check it out here.

70,000 litres of paint
358 single bottle bombs
33 sextuple air cluster bombs
22 Triple hung cluster bombs
268 mortars
33 Triple Mortars
22 Double mortars
358 meters of weld
330 meters of steel pipe
57 km of copper wire

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A year or two ago (I can’t remember exactly), I went hunting for an application for OS X that would analyze my iTunes library and give me the beats per minute (BPM). I’m a fan of very high tempo tracks, especially while working or running. Unfortunately I only found one application, and it didn’t work too well, and only catalogued a small portion of my collection.

Today I noticed Chris Messina–whose blog is worth reading if only to see examples of great design–mention Tangerine.

Tangerine takes a look at your iTunes library and works out the BPM and Beat Intensity of it’s music. You can then create a playlist that varies in total length, variety of BPM and Intensity, and also pattern (random, single hill, double hill, and single hill alternating). It also allows you to write the BPM to your iTunes library, which allows me to create a few extra Smart Playlists myself.

The application looks sweet, right down to the boxed tangerine with a straw as an icon. It’ll be something that becomes a companion of mine for some time I’d imagine. As soon as Apple launches their Nike+ range of products down here, it’ll be even more valuable.

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A couple of days ago I pointed to the Bulletin article about Cam’s move to the US.

Those who are interested in funding Aussie startups should check out Randal’s thoughts on the subject (and note that a couple of VCs have their say in his comments). It’s interesting that Mike Zimmerman claims he was misquoted. As I mentioned, I explained I’m sticking to Australia for my funding, and wasn’t mentioned. I also pointed Josh to a local entrepreneur that has two successful businesses–one bootstrapped, the other locally funded–and that to wasn’t mentioned.

What is really good to see is at least two VCs getting involved in blogger conversations. Marc and Mike: nice seeing you in the blogosphere, you guys should get your own weblogs ;) .

Also note that Randal was recently on the cover of BRW, as Cam is now on the cover of Bulletin.

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I’d like to congratulate my Perth Entrepreneurs cofounder Viveca Trader for launching her new business, Fruit-Express. Well done!

If you’re in Perth, working for a company that needs a little fruit injection, then you can place an order with Fruit-Express and they’ll deliver a fruit basket (of varying sizes) to your office each Monday.

I thought it was a great idea. Quite often near the end of a work day I’d find myself getting hungry, and usually the only thing available was a chocolate bar or biscuit. So having easily available fruit means I grab a healthy snack, rather than get into a habit of grabbing a sugar fix.

My wife, Kilee, is even considering getting one for the home.

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The Bulletin Magazine has a good piece on “web 2.0″ and funding in Australia, The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth. It highlights the difficulty in gaining attention and the right valuations as an Aussie Internet entrepreneur (note how the Bulletin uses an “i” for Internet).

Josh Gliddon chatted with me the other day for the article, though I don’t get a mention probably because I’m currently sticking to Aussie turf to find funding. My buddies Cameron, Marty, Nik, and Ben get some great coverage. Good one guys!

My only question of Josh is, WTF do you mean no “business model at all.”

And nowhere is that better illustrated than with YouTube. Despite its 100 million streams per day, it didn’t appear to have any business model at all. It’s the same dilemma that News Corp must have faced when it purchased the social networking site MySpace for what now looks like a bargain price of $US580m just over a year ago.

That’s like saying the Bulletin magazine has 100 millions views a day, but I’m not sure what it’s business model is. How about 100 million views per day. How about distribution deals with media companies. How about sponsorship for firms looking to find a bunch of potential customers. I’m sure if you gave me a few more minutes I’d come up with at least another half a dozen potential revenue streams that are open to MySpace and YouTube, and several more I don’t want to share because I’ve got some in my business model for Web2Thing.

Josh, on the one hand you’ve told us that VCs aren’t funding smart Aussie entrepreneurs, and on the other you’re saying it’s hard to find a “web 2.0″ company with a business model.

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Cameron Reilly and I chatted with Thomas Reynolds the other day on G’Day World. Thomas was, until recently, a contractor to Telstra.

Thomas was told several days ago that his services were no longer required, and that it was related to blog posts he’d filed on Telstra’s corporate blog, nowwearetalking. Since then Cameron has reported a little more on his weblog, and so has Mark Jones. In fact, Mark wrote a great article for the AFR digging in to the situation.

It’s fairly obvious that Telstra had an issue with Thomas’ weblog. They’ve removed it from their site, and deleted the contents of Google’s Cache (anyone know how to get it back?). Mark’s article seems to sum the situation up nicely, that Telstra just aren’t ready for blog culture: that is, being open and honest about their business.

Orwellian control in our own backyard it seems.

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A few years ago a friend recommended a domain registration service called RegisterFly. I used it for a few years, even though the site itself was dog-slow (I assumed it was because of its popularity).

Over the last year I’ve switched to using GoDaddy. Mostly because RegisterFly became a lot more difficult to register domains, and eventually I had major issues registering a .com.au address. I’d pumped some money into the account as part of the process, and its sat there since.

Over the months I tried to use the money on various domains, but recently, when I tried to register another .com.au it failed, again.

So I applied for a refund in their help system. After several days I still don’t have a response. I also noticed that for a short period their web site wasn’t reachable. Any one have similar issues?

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I was too busy earlier to post about Google Docs and Spreadsheets. I was way too busy using the Spreadsheets to do Discounted Cash Flow and Docs to continue adding my business plan.

Along with my business partner Graeme, I’ve been using Writely and Google Spreadsheets for the last few months to collaborate on starting our business. So, you could say, I’m right into using the applications already. No need to sell me on the upgrade, having them in one spot just makes it easier to use.

There are a few bugs here and there, and some of the formulas aren’t intuitive, but I’d say I’ve struggled with those issues since I started using office “productivity” suites.

Other than the fact that they are free (I’d like to see Microsoft duplicate that), I love the collaboration features. It’s insanely easy to start a document or spreadsheet and share it with anyone with an Internet connection. I’ve started several, for business, and with friends and family, for various reasons. Given that you can import, and export, various document formats, if you want to collaborate documents or spreadsheets I’d encourage you to sign up and give it a go.

By the way, if anyone knows how they can easily explain Discounted Cash Flow financial models to me, then please fire away.

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With everything that is going on around online video, I found this bit of news interesting.

In its latest ranking of online video sites, ComScore found that in July over 106.5 million people, about three out of every five US Internet users, streamed or downloaded video during the month of July.

In total, nearly 7.2 billion videos were streamed or downloaded in the US, an average of 67 streams per streamer, which means that the typical video streamer viewed more than two streams per day.

That’s 60% of US Internet users watched online video. That’s an amazing statistic.

I’ve always been a massive proponent of television, movies, and entertainment in general moving to the Internet. Recently I’ve become a fan of saying that Linear Television is dead: the Internet is having a massive impact on the medium. What I couldn’t have guessed was how quickly it’s being accepted. Yesterday’s news is one of the signals, and so are the statistics from the article.

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So today’s news (and I’d even say the tech news of the year) is Google’s acquisition of YouTube. $1.6 Billion is a very nice number.

I’d heard the rumours at TechCrunch the other day, and only took them lightly. Perhaps the number was too big, or I’ve been too busy, but it never really sunk in until it happened.

Why buy YouTube? Are they buying the name?

In one respect they are, it’s all about opportunity cost. Google know that online video is the next big thing, and what they can’t afford is to have a Microsoft, or Fox, buy YouTube and remain number one. This play is all about removing the opportunity for a competitor to buy YouTube and take number one.

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Speaking of brilliant citizen journalism. The Podcast Network is having another survey. Make sure you have your say to shape the future of media.

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James Farmer wrote a nice piece of “media” (to use his definition) today, that’s been getting some flack.

Essentially James has a single point, he just manages to muddy the water by slinging a few balls of dirt in a number of directions. Broken down what he’s saying is that bloggers, or “citizen journalists” shouldn’t be called journalists, because they’re not trained professionals. That’s just a matter of definition, which personally I’m not attached to either way (I’ve blogged and written professionally so can actually speak from both sides).

Now admittedly, James could be trying to be controversial just to pimp some attention. Judging by the comments on the post, I’d say that worked.

However, on the way James has managed to suggest that almost all bloggers don’t provide good quality content, by making a sweeping generalisation: “The only question now is whether you’re any good at it. And I’m just guessing here, but as you’ve never studied or practised journalism, the odds are that you’re not. There are exceptions, yes, but as a rule the quality ‘aint great.”

However, he has failed to take a few factors into account.

Firstly, the “wisdom of crowds,” to borrow James Surowiecki’s book title.

What blogging has done is provide a mechanism to publish easily. With enough people involved–shall we call it “mass citizen journalism”–the quality achieved is much higher, more accurate, less biased, and better analysed than even the largest newspaper.

Throw comments, trackbacks, and technorati into the mix, and you’ll increase the quality of a blog post massively.

Also, what about citizen journalism in the context of something like a war. Who would you rather read reporting the news: a journalist holed up in a hotel, or a citizen in the middle of the war-field. The later offers a lot more insight than the former, and a real fresh perspective than what were used to reading.

Lets take PerthNorg as an example of clever aggregation of citizen journalism. Anyone can submit a news item, anyone can comment on it, and it can be voted down or up. With a critical mass of CitJ’ers, the quality of the news will increase, and possibly exponentially.

PerthNorg is a great example, because in a small city like Perth, there is a monopoly on local news. That means The West Australian has been slow to offer alternatives, like online publication. It also means I have to wait for them to decide what news they want to report. With PerthNorg, I don’t have to wait. An amateur can report within minutes or hours of an event, no matter how small.

So far I’ve assumed James is only talking about “general” news. If we look at specialised blogs, they’re often written by amateurs (from the Latin “amator:” lover, devoted friend, devotee, enthusiastic pursuer of an objective) or professionals in particular fields. In which case, they’re often more qualified to discuss the topic that a journalist who is only involved as part of their 9 to 5 day job.

Now, here’s my qualifying statements. I think there is a place, and always will be, for professional journalism. There is no doubt that in instances they do a good job. They just have to make room for amateur journalists or the CitJ.

I also realise that the majority of the world don’t know what blogs are, but that’s changing rapidly, and for good reason. People are sick of biased corporate main stream media, and are looking for a breath of fresh air. That’s coming to us on mass, in the form of citizen “amateur” journalism.

So James had made a sweeping generalisation, and suggested that most blogs are not very good quality, without taking into account the huge value in participatory media, and that in many cases, these citizens are amateurs, who are actually experts.

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My friends, Duncan, Darren, Jeremy, and Shai (three Aussies and a Canook), at B5 Media have a fantastic announcement today. Rick Segal, a VC that any web 2.0 or blogger entrepreneur will tell you to watch, has just announced a round of funding for the crew: US$2 million.

For me this is exciting on two levels. It’s great to see a bunch of Aussies succeeding, but also it validates (if we still need to) citizen media/blogging/new media/what-ever-we’re-calling-it-today.

Well done to the four of you, and I’m excitedly watching where you guys take this.

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Guy Kawasaki hosted a panel at the Churchill Club at the end of last month titled Next Generation Innovation. I watched the video today.

When I speak these days I dedicate a little time discussing Generation Y. It’s important, because they have a different attachment to technology than Generation X and Baby Boomers, and of course there all entering the work force as we speak.

I found a few items interesting, and some surprising. However, perhaps not for the reason I would have expected. I know that most gen y’ers text. I know they don’t like advertising. I know they are very social through technology. However, it surprised me that most weren’t overly interested in social networks, like MySpace, or online video. Perhaps it’s the total saturation of main stream media rants about MySpace and YouTube that has us thinking it’s all the rage.

It’s also just awesome that they only watch from 0 to 3 hours of television, via a PVR. If people wonder why I say that linear television is dead, this is one of the reasons.

A general note, the panel seemed to be made up of mostly late teens and early twenties. The youngest being 15, but very skewed to young adults rather that those in their late teens. My bet is the conversations would have sounded a little different if they had younger participants.

Here are a few notes from the video.

Texting:

• One panelist sent 4000 texts in a month, and her parents banned its use (for obvious reasons).
• Cell phone used for almost everything.
• Texting is like one line quick IM.
• Texting is like email for Gen Y.

MySpace/Facebook:

• All panelists use either MySpace or Facebook.
• Most of them didn’t seem to be overly interested in either. They just seemed used because their friends do.

Paying Online:

• They all were not adverse to buying a range of things online.

iTunes Music Store:

• Each panelist uses either iTunes or a music subscription service. The $50 a year, $10+ a month, $10 month, $30 - $40 a month, $50 a month.

Computer Games:

• The two younger boys play computer games.
• Most didn’t care.

Television:

• Hours watched included 0, 0, 1-2 hours a week, record shows on PVR and watch on weekend, 1-2 hours PVR a day, 2-3 hours PVR a week.
• No one watches commercial, they skip them because they all use a PVR.

Portable music device:

• Everyone had an iPod.
• None would move away from the device to competitors.

Browser:

• They all used either Firefox or Safari. None used IE.

Where do they see advertising:

• More personal methods of advertising, like booth demonstrations, and recommendations from friends.
• Seeing celebrities with the product (though this seemed a female bias).
• Billboards.

Magazines:

• People, Vogue, and amazingly many mentioned Wired (which, couple with the bias toward Firefox and Safari, makes me wonder about their background, were they tech focused in nature to start?).

Online Video:

• Youtube.
• News videos (CNN).
• Having said that, these were mentioned in an offhand manner, and they didn’t seem to be overly focused on online video.

Other interesting points:

• Only one of them knows what RSS is.
• None write blogs.
• All use Wikipedia.
• They all want a portable device that does everything.

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I hate partial feeds! I very rarely subscribe to partial feeds, and almost never visit a site that uses them exclusively. If you’re a site owner, and only have partial feeds, I believe that you’ll lose customers or potential customers because of it.

Now I know a few professional webloggers that swear by partial feeds, because they can’t generate as much advertising revenue from their content when it is consumed via an aggregator, and they have a (legitimate) fear of thieves stealing their content. Unfortunately for them, they need to innovate to generate their money and security. You can’t just sit back and not expect someone to come up with a creative way of allowing full feeds and still generate an income. So loosen up a little, and open up to full feeds.

I’m passionate about it, perhaps not as much as Scoble, but enough to follow suit and sign the fullfeeds.com petition.

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Last week, a few days before we were due to host a group of friends for the AFL grand-final, my Samsung Rear Projection television began to act up.

Admittedly, this isn’t so bad. We’ve had the unit for three years, and have had no issues, including no requirement to change the bulb. We’ve been happy with the television, and the amount of television we’ve watched has paid for the unit in full.

Saying that, it’s not like I’m ready to throw it away and buy a new one. Thankfully, when we bought it, we purchased extended warranty. So after a while digging up the invoice I gave the warranty company a call, and we’ll have a service agent out within the next few days.

However, can anyone make a suggestion as to the fault? After an hour or so of use, the television’s picture turns to a static green (as shown in the photograph). If I turn the unit off, and wait several minutes, turn it back on, it returns to normal for about 30 minutes before the fault appears again. The sound stays perfect through the whole ordeal.

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I noticed today that Chris Saad and Ashley Angell, fellow Aussies, from Touchstone has announced a new attention format (I hate the term attention because it’s a very confusing term).

Attention Profiling Mark-up Language (APML) is simply a way for people to standardise on a way to collect data about peoples habits or interests, such as what web sites they visit. With a standard, it makes it easier for people to take their own data and move it or delete it–obviously a major concern in a privacy-centric society.

What most people don’t realise is that there are a bunch of companies that already collect this type of data. Amazon and Google are two major companies that already use data to help the community and individuals better find things that they like. The only issue is, that ones the data goes in, it only comes out when you use their services.

What the APML group are proposing is a standard, so that the data can be migrated at the whim of the owner (i.e.: the person who’s habits or interests it reflects). So you can capitalise on what you do with a range of different services, like Amazon, Google, Digg, etc.

The concept isn’t new though, I’ve heard it talked about for a couple of years at least. So my question to Chris and Ashley is how does it differ from attention.xml?