Most big news media tried to keep their cake and eat it too:

1. We'll brand and present some of our content as blogs so that it does NOT have to live up to the standards of our other content, so we CAN break news as fast as the guy that doesn't validate sources etc, so we CAN get away with presenting unedited, sometimes slapdash content, so we can play in the long tail sandbox at times...and of course most importantly so we STOP losing pageviews to "blogs".

2. But OUR blogs will be different and better because they will have instant credibility from our strong brand, an eager audience from our installed base, and professional writers.

In reality the result has been much closer to what Mark describes. Not surprisingly.

A stronger model is the one the Washington Post is experimenting with. Fill the edges, the long-tail, with external blogs - blogs written by people that often are passionate experts in their small sandbox, not a professional half-heartedly playing a new game that is often not in his DNA. And of course sell ads across the aggregated network, adding some hyperlocal inventory to the installed base, strengthening relationships with advertisers, and disintermediating independent blogs and the advertisers.

How does the US look when:
+ residential broadband goes from 50% to 75%
+ phone broadband from 1% to 50%
+ consumer electronics and cars come online
+ pioneer states give 100% broadband access
+ areas like healthcare, education govt catch up
+ download speeds get 5x better and upload 10x

We might have hit the first plateau. But the higher part of the mountain is still ahead. Usually easier/quicker to get to the first plateau, so maybe the next phase doesn't have the acceleration of the first one, but are we really anywhere close to what the Internet will ultimately enable?

NFL contracts are not player friendly. Partially because the NFL is a monopoly. At macro level this creates an opportunity for competitors to try to exploit, along w/ the other variables Mark listed. Competition is always good. I hope they do well - they have their work cut out for them.

Each Clear Channel station has a narrow pipe (as in one song at a time narrow) that broadcasts content (audio); the same exact content to each unique listener within range. Yeah, CC has issues keeping you and me both happy at the same time. YouTube has virtually an infinite width pipe to deliver the unique content that any user chooses to view at any point in time. Now agree in some ways it is easier to monetize the CC pipe (at least directly monetize it) - but YouTube doesn't need to get into the DJ business. YouTube has hundreds of millions of them already, including you and me.

Interesting that they released same day as Yahoo!/SanDisk Sansa announcement. Not that Yahoo/SanDisk is a speck compared to the 100 million, but maybe Apple feels that the next 100 million will be dominated by players with open mobile wireless Internet capability, and players like the Sansa, recently announced Slacker, and possibly the evolution of the Google/Samsung Switch could be competition for Apple in this category:
http://blog.nextblitz.com/blog/2007/04/sandisk_sansa_p.html

Agree - Google will be waiting with the targeted size, color, flavor...ditto companies like Amazon (see TiVo announcement)...TV advertising is woefully ineffective considering the reach they have, and Google, Amazon, etc. can apply their 100s of terabytes of user data/metadata to overhaul it.

This is the beginning of the end for the big mobile carriers - phones as we know them will soon be equivalent to typewriters:

http://blog.nextblitz.com/blog/2007/03/google_phone.html

Don't agree with the tactic, but agree with the strategy. I'd break it up into two parts:
1. If company A is "selling" a brand, then "A" better be smart enough to make YouTube work for them. It should be "free" eyeballs, "free" publicity. If I'm selling a brand, I love YouTube.
2. If company B is selling digital content, and YouTube is cutting into their top line, then they better look at their business model. YouTube is just a symptom of today's age. Want to dedicate resources to a symptom, or to understanding the real cause and figuring out how to deal with it?

Mark - I hope you buy the Cubs. Incredibly valuable franchise and loyal fan base, despite the way that the Tribune has mismanaged. I'd love to see what you do with it. But I don't want to see the first pitch of every Soriano, Lee, and Ramirez at bat on YouTube followed by 10 minute tours of the outfield ivy.

That is a classic quote. Let's hope the Skypes and OpenMokos (link below) of the world keep pushing the envelope. A mobile, broadband, outside of the walled garden data pipe with the type of reach and coverage of today's mobile voice networks changes just about every market on the planet.
http://blog.nextblitz.com/blog/2007/02/openmoko_open_s.html

Google will likely operate them as 2 distinct lines of business, as they should. Video search bringing in ad dollars tied to your video search (hmm sounds familiar...they should be able to make a few bucks there). Video search should be as source agnostic as PageRank...meaning YouTube will often be at the top due to the algorithms themselves. Agree it needs to search all sites, but it will still benefit YouTube the most, at least for now. As far as monetizing YouTube itself, sure seems their strategy is getting in bed with the big guys. The rest of the content just brings in eyeballs...it is indirectly monetized by the money from the big guys, so doesn't need to be directly monetized.