Google + YouTube: What it means

So here’s the next big rumor – that Google will buy YouTube for $1.6 billionM. The WSJ article, the TechCrunch post had some of the early takes, but rather than add to the furor of whether the rumor is true or not, I’m going to focus on why Google and YouTube would be interested in working together.

Here’s my quick take on the rumored acquisition:

Why would Google buy YouTube? To start, 35 million users in the US and 100 million daily video views. But it’s not just the sheer numbers that grabs Google’s attention. YouTube is a gem because it figured out what Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and all of the other video players in the marketplace couldn’t – that it’s not about the video. It’s really about the community that’s around the video.

Take a look at the screenshot below of the same “Extreme Diet Coke And Mentos Experiment” video on YouTube and Google Video. You’ll notice that YouTube has many things you can do with the video – rate it, save it to favorites, comment on it, share it, see other related videos, and view the user’s playlists, etc. I think you get the idea.

Then take a look at the Google screenshot. Let’s see… you can add a comment (that’s new). There are a few other additional features like browsing related videos or via tags. But clearly, the focus is on the big, dominant video player.

YouTube is winning the hearts of the audience because video search simply doesn’t work. You have to instead rely on the opinions, ratings, and playlist compilations of others to discover good video. 

Why would YouTube want to be bought by Google? My colleagues, Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler, discussed earlier this week in their blogs that earlier this week that YouTube faces substantial risk with lawsuits coming from music and video copyright holders, and how they could potentially address those concerns – namely by developing technologies to identify copyrighted materials against a body of work provided by the copyright holders. But who is in a better position to develop that technology – 60 burnt out people at YouTube or the legendary technical minds at Google?

Moreover, Josh points out that YouTube faces potential “cease and decease” actions from copyright holders, and risks following in the footsteps of Napster where it could its activities can be seriously compromised. But this morning, Josh and I discussed that a copyright holder would be much more likely to negotiate and partner with Google than a start-up like YouTube. Update: Josh just posted his thoughts on the rumored acquisition as well.

Is YouTube worth $1.6B? You betcha. That’s 4 cents per video stream ($1.6B divided by 100 million daily views * 365 days) and it’s still growing. Another way to think of it is that YouTube has roughly 50 million users (35M in the US according to Nielsen NetRatings, and probably another 15M worldwide) which comes out to $32 per user. It’s high, but it’s also reasonable.

Granted, YouTube is just beginning to monetize its audience, but having access to  Google’s über-ad network gives it a huge leg up. But this is where I hope YouTube stays the course in not cluttering up its unique interface with sponsored text ads, or its video experience with pre- and post-roll video ads.

The real opportunity for YouTube is to create a completely different kind of advertising form, one that is based on community engagement and involvement, rather than the traditional interruptive style of advertising. Take a look at their home page – here’s a screenshot from today. There’s a small text link to a “Follow the Finger” video contest sponsored by Butterfinger (screenshot also included). Advertisers are loathed to develop these special campaigns together – they would much rather slap on existing banners and promotions. But given the size and attractiveness of the YouTube audience, the site can command not only top dollar with exclusiveness, but also demand that advertisers adhere to specific standards that guarantee the best user experience.

If the acquisition goes forward, Google will be pressured to quickly realize a return on its first major investment. My hope is that Google will resist the temptation to turn YouTube into yet another cluttered ad space and allow the company to push advertisers into this new, engaged form of advertising.

Yahoo! And Facebook – a good potential match

I’ve been watching the stories about the rumored acquisition of Facebook by Yahoo for $1 billion and finally feel compelled to comment on the rumors, something I usually don’t do. Here are a couple of the thoughts that I’ve shared with several clients and reporters over the past day:

- Facebook is worth a lot of money in the market. I’m no financial analyst so can’t really say what Facebook is worth, but here are some thoughts on how to value it. First, take a look at the recent IPO of Mixi, the leading Japanese social network. I wrote a post on it last week that looked at how to use it to value US-based social networks. Mixi’s IPO value was a little shy of $1 billion for its 5 million members. Using that as a base, Facebook’s 7.5 million members would be worth roughly $1.5 billion.

- Yahoo! needs a social network. The reason Yahoo! is so interested (and willing to pay top dollar) is that it’s core strategy is built around social media, with people and profiles at the center of the strategy and technology. One of the core components of a social strategy – and of social networks – are robust profiles (I wrote about this in a research piece waaay back in July 2004, “Profiles: The Real Value Of Social Networks”). On Yahoo!, there’s no strong, integrated use of profiles.

Here are two examples of my profile on Yahoo!. The first is the one associated with my Yahoo! ID – there’s not much there. The second is from my Yahoo! 360 ID, which has links to the reviews I’ve done across Yahoo!. Note that they are completely different and not really linked. Even more telling, at Yahoo!’s analyst day earlier this year, Yahoo! executives talked extensively about their social media strategy – and never mentioned Yahoo! 360 once. Yahoo! 360 is kaput, so they need to jumpstart their social networking initiatives – and an acquisition is the fastest way to do it to counter the growth of MySpace and YouTube.

And there’s also substantial affinity between Facebook users and Yahoo! According to Nielsen//NetRatings, 83% of Facebook users also visited Yahoo! at least once in August 2006. Also, Google has the same amount of overlap – 83% of Facebook users also used Google that month.

-         The rumor effectively tests how Facebook members will react to an acquisition. After the news feed fiasco, Facebook can hardly be blamed for being cautious about moving quickly. This rumor effectively is a great test to see how its members will react – and if they will bolt to another service if an acquisition goes through. There is an official petition on Facebook called “Don’t Sell To Yahoo!” which 502 members have joined (as of this posting), which is nothing compared to the almost 700,000 members of the “Students Against Facebook News Feed” group. But give it some time – there is substantially less value if the Facebook membership objects strenuously to the idea of an acquisition by Yahoo! (or anyone for that matter).

So what’s really going on, especially with the antics described in the WSJ.com article? This is the classic case of a hot hot hot company sitting in a very nice spot with many options. Facebook (and its investors) will sit tight until the right offer comes along – or never and take their chances on the IPO market. In the end, I think being a part of larger entity would serve Facebook well, mainly because a social network needs context. And as Facebook opens up and grows beyond its core membership of college students, it will have to replace the context of the college campus with content and experiences that people share – something that Yahoo! has in spades.

The changing media business model

Last week, I led a panel on the impact of Technology on the content business, at the Software & Informatioun Industry Association Content Forum. The panel was my “dream team” of social computing, and included (by topic and speaker):

-          Blogging: Six Apart, Marissa Levinson

-          API’s and mash-ups: Google, Bret Taylor

-          Wikis: WetPaint, Ben Elowich

-          Tagging: del.icio.us, Joshua Schachter

-          Social media: digg.com, Kevin Rose

The goal of the panel: to give “traditional media” attendees an idea of how new technologies are changing the way consumers interact with media. As readers of this blog, you are probably already experiencing the changes personally – everything from becoming content providers yourselves to just simply enjoying the proliferation of user-generated content.

But the question is terrifying for many media companies – the idea of letting go of control of their content and the experience flies in the face of most companies. And I got several comments from attendees that the panel participants were on average HALF the age of the attendees and other conference speakers.

One key idea I shared with the audience is my take on the role of media companies in the future. Media companies in the past derived their value from either: 1) their distribution channel; or 2) the content they created.

I believe that in the future media companies will generate the bulk of their value from serving their ability to aggregate and serve audiences better than the competition. It doesn’t matter if the media company actually creates or even controls the content that draws them. Channels will be transparent and content won’t necessarily even be owned in a syndicated and aggregated content landscape.

A case in point: digg.com produces no content of their own but has a very unique way to look into the interests of its users. Kevin showed a very cool software tool they use internally called “Trace” that looks at the stories a specific user is reading, and shows in real time how that user’s attention jumps to other topics. Kevin also showed how “diggers” were related to each other based on the stories they mutually “dugg”. The traditional “audience management” advocates like Tacoda have shifted toward behavioral targeting, but at the core, understanding users at a highly granular level will be an essential skill for media companies.

A few other examples: Google’s Bret Taylor showed two mapping mash-ups, housingmaps.com and mapmyrun.com. (The latter is particularly useful (albeit, a bit kludgy) as I’m having to re-plan all of my running and biking routes with my recent move.)

The general recommendation for media companies from the panel I think also applies to marketers in general – start small but start now. It won’t be easy or feel natural, but the sooner media companies and marketers can experience these technologies first hand, the better off they will be as more and more consumers adopt them.

So who’s doing it well in the media business? I like to point to CNET’s News.com, which has great news content targeting the tech enthusiast. Take a look at this story from today’s front page, “Microsoft making better music?” It’s a piece of news analysis, which is great original content. But they also provide a service called “The Big Picture” which “maps” how this story is related to other stories, topics, and companies. It’s a great example of an application serving as “content”. Other features on the story include 38 “Talkback” comments and Trackbacks (hopefully at least one from this blog post).

But what I think best typifies News.com’s unique approach is their “Extra” section. It started as “More News From Around The Web” where the editors selected top stories from other sites. It’s evolved into a place where you can read about tech stories from all around the Web, even if CNET’s News.com isn’t covering it. So there’s an article wireless technology from Business 2.0, and a story on Steve Ballmer’s comments on Vista includes a link to the News.com story, as well as links to stories from competitors like TechNewsWorld, PCWorld, and Wired News.

That’s akin to The New York Times linking to the New York Post, The San Francisco Chronicle linking to The San Jose Mercury News, and dare I say it, Forrester linking to Jupiter or Gartner! But if you take the social computing view that as a publisher, you can’t serve ALL of the needs of your customer yourself, then the best that you should do is to be the FIRST source of information for your audience. In that way, News.com ensures that although it may not be the ONLY source of technology news, it has a fighting chance of filtering and aggregating that news for its audience better than anyone else.

Google Finance: Nice charts, but users won’t switch quickly

By Charlene Li

Google Finance launched tonight – I had a sneak peak from Google last week and got a chance to play with it a bit after it went live tonight. I also had a chance to speak with a Yahoo! spokesperson after the Google site launched and was able to get their reaction. Here’s my quick take on the new service and what it means:

There are three new features in Google Finance that stood out for me:

-         Search. No need to know the ticker symbol of a company. I could type in company names like Home Depot and Target, and get the full information page in a wink. On Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, and Marketwatch.com, I have to know the ticker symbol. And even when I use the lookup, especially for Target, I get a long list of companies with the name “target” in them. Finally, I don’t feel like a dummy when trying to look up companies!

-         Charts. Google took a page from its Maps product and makes the charts interactive – you can drag them back and forth over time to see how prices have changed, without having to wait for the page to refresh. Another nice feature – key new s stories are mapped out on the chart (see the screenshot above).

-         Community advocates on message boards. Google will have as part of every publicly traded company, a message board that is a part of Google Groups. Taking a page from the popular Yahoo! Finance message boards, Google has created a discussion area for every publicly traded company (or so it appears). Inappropriate and spam postings have always been the bane of the Yahoo! boards, so Google’s put in place a few things, most notably the use of employees (yes, employees!) who will police the boards. What strikes me as ironic is that rather than employ technology to solve the problem, Google is using people to monitor the boards, in much the same way they review the content for search ads. Amazingly, there is no ability for users to flag posts for review – if quality is important, why doesn’t Google leverage its users to be the front lines in the fight for quality?

So overall, Google has done a very, very nice job pulling together a financial portal. Oops, did I just say “portal”? Sure looks like Google is pursuing that strategy now, doesn’t it! And rightly so – just take a look at the discussion board about Google and you’ll see person after person saying that they are defecting from their current finance site (mostly Yahoo!) to use Google.

But I frankly think that we won’t be seeing a mass migration of people from other finance sites to Google anytime soon. The most obvious defectors will be Google enthusiasts – they won’t be able to wait to add Google Finance to their personalized home page. But I believe that most mainstream financial site users will stick with their current sources for now, primarily because it’s simply a pain to have to re-enter your detailed portfolio information again! Are nice charts and company look-ups enough to shift people over to Google Finance? And don’t forget that Yahoo! and MSN have invested heavily in producing their own content, and I fully expect that they will improve their search, charts, and boards quickly as well.

But these features are all window dressing. In the end, Google Finance is a definite improvement on existing services, but it didn’t blow me away. It felt like it was incremental improvements rather than something that fundamentally changed the financial site game.

I believe that Yahoo! actually has the opportunity to change the game, but only if it taps into its nascent social computing strategy. For example, it may give users the technology to rank posts on quality or flag inappropriate posts. But also think about the power of tags on posts, or the ability to see rich profiles that enable users to connect with each other based on their similar investment goals. Think of a social network where I could find working moms who have to balance saving for college, retirement -- and are in the midst of building a house.

So kudos to Google for launching a nice new site that ups the ante, but don’t rest on your laurels for long – your competitors will quickly match you feature for feature, and raise you with their larger installed user bases.

Google enables personalized content, RSS on mobile phones

By Charlene Li

Just got off the phone with Deep Nashir, product manager for Google mobile products. Google just made its personalized home page accessible on mobile devices with an XHTML-capable Web browser. The announcement of Google Personalized Home and details for a Web-enabled demo are below.

Deep had three reasons for why they did this:

1) the phone is a very personal device, so the experience on the phone should be personal. 

2) they figured out a way so that network latency issues are minimized.

3) all of the information is available on the home screen -- you can quickly see how many emails are in Gmail, what the weather is, and your top RSS feeds. Deep positioned this as vastly different from Yahoo! Go Mobile, where information is still a click (and wait) away. Also, Yahoo! Go requires a download while the new Google service is available with just the browser

Interestingly, Google sets the default order of the content, and when asked whether user could customize the ordering, Deep said cryptically, "That feature is not available today," which implies that it will soon be. 

My take: finally, an easy way to get my RSS feeds on my Blackberry! I'll be setting up my Google personalized page primarily for mobile reading. This is a new habit of mine -- depending on where I read my RSS content, I want different configurations of different content. For example, I have ALL of my feeds coming into FeedDemon, which I use as a backup. I then read all of my backlogged feeds (aka non-priority feeds) when I'm traveling and offline. There are my regular feeds that I get through both Bloglines and Google Sidebar (again I use Bloglines as a backup because I can read it anywhere, Sidebar because it's easy and accessible at all times). And now, I'll add some crucial must reads to my Google page for my mobile information needs.

Here's the announcement:

Today, Google continued the expansion of its mobile offerings with the announcement of Google Personalized Home for mobile devices, a new service that enables users’ access to their personalized Google homepage on their mobile phones and PDAs.  With Personalized Home, users on-the-go can view the information they access most frequently from one screen on their mobile device.  For example, business travelers can easily keep up with their personal stock quotes while they're on the road, and news junkies can stay on top of their favorite headlines when they're away from their desktops and TVs - all without having to search multiple web pages from a mobile device.

Google Personalized Home provides at-a-glance access to information such as Gmail, customized news headlines, local weather, stock updates, hand-picked RSS feeds and more.  Information is optimized for the smaller screens and slower bandwidth of most mobile devices and is presented in a format that reduces the need to click multiple links.

Users who have already setup a personalized Google homepage on their PC can simply visit http://www.google.com through the web browser of their mobile device, select the "Personalized Home" link, and then sign in with their Google account username and password.  The next time they visit google.com on their phone, they will automatically see the same customized content modules that are featured on the web version of their Google personalized homepage. (Users who do not yet have a personalized Google homepage on their PC should first visit http://www.google.com/ig from their desktop computer and select the content to be added to their homepage.)

Google Personalized Home is currently available for free to mobile users in the U.S. and works with any phone that contains an XHTML-capable web browser.  Users should check with their carriers on their data service plan to determine if there are additional charges for web access.

For more information about Google Personalized Home, please visit http://mobile.google.com/personalized/.

CES wrap-up

By Charlene Li

Here’s a quick overview of some of the things I picked up after two days at CES.

-         A Tale Of Two Keynotes. I attended both the Yahoo! and Google keynotes and Friday and the contrast was obvious, starting from the music and ending with the celebrities. I have to say, I really enjoyed seeing Tom Cruise during the Yahoo! speech, but felt that it was fairly canned, especially Ellen DeGeneres’ “monologue” about the technical problems she had. The Yahoo! speakers were well rehearsed, but they were, well, rehearsed. In contrast, Larry Page was far from the most dynamic speaker, frequently checking his paper notes. But there was a down to earth quality of his presentation, and the fact that he took many questions from audience members brought a man of the people quality to the keynote. But by far the best part of the Google keynote was Robin Williams’ co-hosting of the Q&A (I thankfully escaped any ribbing when I asked a question!). You couldn’t have asked for better entertainment than the parody of our own questions.

-         Getting trampled. Just one other observation about the keynotes. Maybe it was the 9am start time, maybe it was the company, but the Yahoo! keynote wasn’t full and while the audience was attentive, it wasn’t energized. I was able to walk in, and have nobody else sitting next to me in the balcony. Contrast to the Google keynote, which was near mayhem outside the theater doors just before the start of the keynote. I showed up 15 minutes early, stood in the wrong line (with ticket holders instead of press) and proceeded to get pushed, shoved, and almost trampled by irate ticket holders who couldn’t get in because they had all shown up past the deadline. And there were about 200 more people without tickets hoping to get in anyway at the last minute. The result: I felt very fortunate to finally get in, but was pretty shaken from the mayhem. I knew that the Google keynote was the hottest ticket at CES, but didn’t anticipate just how aggressive people could be.

-         Convergence? Didn’t see it. This show was supposed to be about “convergence” but darn if I couldn’t find it at the show. I haven’t been to CES since 1995, primarily because my research focus is on media and marketing – you know, the stuff that convergence is supposed to bring to devices. The Yahoo! and Google keynotes gave me the excuse to come to Las Vegas and indulge my gadget-loving side, but there was little convergence happening outside of Yahoo’s announcements. The only other interesting example was TiVo’s current online offerings, available on the Series 2 machines (I just ordered one so I’m eager to try it out). TiVo’s CEO Tom Rogers eagerly discussed with a group of reporters its anticipated high definition product (scheduled to be introduced mid-year) which will take advantage of its broadband connection to provide even more online services. While I anticipate more devices to integrate online services, it will be deals like the one between TiVo and Yahoo! that will be core to making such convergence services work for consumers.

-         My favorite gadget. I heard about this one when a TV crew picked me out while I was noshing my lunch outside the main hall with some Forrester colleagues. Interestingly, they wanted to interview me and not my other (male) colleagues because I was a woman. The device: the Connect Io Intelligent Oven that turns on by the Internet or cell phone (and can keep food cool before it turns on). What, were you expecting me to pick a cell phone or HDTV? As a working mom, I thought this was just the coolest thing – I can throw the frozen pizza in the oven in the morning, ping it to preheat and cook the pizza when I pick up my kids, and have pizza on the table in 5 minutes. Now, I just need an applicance that will wash, peel, and cook the veggies for me too!

-         Pedal power in Las Vegas. I rented a bike to get around (photo proof is below) and it totally made the CES experience enjoyable. (My collegue Josh Bernoff did the same). I was able to get from my hotel on the Strip (Harrah’s) to the convention center in 10 minutes – and that includes abiding by all traffic lights. Racking the bike is easy – there are stands right outside Central Hall (Sands is a bit trickier – the only rack I could find was in the back in the service entrance). And visiting other hotels around town is easy – simply check the back in at the Bell Desk. Las Vegas Cyclery makes it easy by dropping off/picking up the bike from your hotel. Only other recommendations: bring your own helmet and wear reflective clothing.

Yahoo! Answers life’s questions

By Charlene Li

Yahoo! Answers launched today at answers.yahoo.com. The service allows users to 1) ask questions; 2) answer them; and 3) discover and browse through all of the answered questions that others have posed.

Here are a few great examples of the helpful (and the esoteric) Q&A taking place.

-         What’s the best microphone or headset for recording a podcast?

-         Where is a good place to live in or near San Jose, CA?

-         Why doesn’t Hello Kitty have a mouth?

The service is free, and even more importantly, is really easy to use. Questions are grouped into categories, there’s a search to find more answers, and best of all, there’s a reputation/feedback system built in.

Compare this to Google Answers or specialty sites like Guru.com – both of these sites are paid services, which makes it a lot more cumbersome to use and also raises the stakes for both the asker and the answerer. By keeping it free, Yahoo! keeps it light but also pretty darn useful. Also, the universe expands tremendously with Yahoo’s service – Google says it has something like 500 pre-vetted answerers while Guru.com serves as an intro to freelancers.

How will Yahoo! benefit? Well, I don’t think they were leaving much money on the table by foregoing the ability to charge. In fact, there’s probably quite a bit more opportunity in the form of advertising, especially since advertisers could potentially buy ad inventory in specific categories or target ads by specific keywords.

Two other ways Yahoo! benefits: 1) It encourages users to become active, participating Yahoo! community members; and 2) it creates new content that can be indexed and searched by Yahoo! (as well as other search engines).

One key area to watch: local advice. This has the potential of causing a huge dent in start-ups like Insider’s Guide or Judy’s Book, primarily because it’s so easy to use and doesn’t require forming a formal social network. I fully expect Yahoo! to integrate Answers into Yahoo! Local in the near future.

Free Forrester videos on Social Computing -- and much more

I spoke a few weeks ago at Forrester's Consumer Forum event in NYC about how companies can tap into social computing. I've included the links below to the MP3 and video files (they are FREE!!!), along with several other relevant speeches and Q&A that I thought you'd be interested in. I've included a few summaries as well as the lengths. [Note: the videos aren't quite "videos" (at least, not on my connection), but you'll get the slides that accompany the speeches -- and also a view of me "walking" around the stage!]. Also included are interviews with Paul Tagliabue, Commissioner of the NFL, Greg Joswiak, VP of Worldwide Product Marketing for iPod, Apple Computer Digital Home, and Vyomesh Joshi, EVP of the Imaging and Personal Systems Group at HP.

Charlene Li: "Social Computing -- Bubble or Big Deal?" (29 min. 38 sec.)
Find out how companies can tap into new technologies such as blogs, RSS, viral marketing, and podcasting to develop deeper relationships with consumers — including five rules that companies should follow to successfully grow these new relationships.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=88

Chris Charron: "Innovating In A Consumer Driven World" (8 min. 43 sec.)
Companies must tap into the power of consumer-to-consumer communication by adopting a "consumer-focused innovation" approach in which consumers play an active role in products, services, experience design, and marketing.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=86

Christine Overby: "The Essentials Of Consumer-Driven Innovation" (20 min. 11 sec.)
To turn consumer insights into profits, companies must master "consumer-focused innovation" — in which consumers play an active role in products, services, experience design, and marketing.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=87

Paul Tagliabue (NFL): Q&A with George Colony Part 1 of 2 (5 min. 12 sec.)
Tagliabue provides his perspective on emerging content distribution channels like video on-demand, streaming and downloading, and wireless video. He emphasizes the need to experiment broadly, create new product for every channel, and target the offering . . .
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=89

Paul Tagliabue (NFL) : Q&A with George Colony Part 2 of 2 (4 min 7 sec)
Commenting on the marketing lessons he has learned at the NFL, Tagliabue discusses the need to monitor consumers carefully and regularly — to uncover invisible changes beneath the surface of macro consumer trends — as well as the need to form multiple . . .
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=90

Greg Joswiak (Apple): Q&A with Josh Bernoff (22 min. 0 sec.)
Joswiak explains how Apple changes the rules of the game. He includes a special emphasis on how Apple taps into customer feedback online and in its stores and then combines those insights with its own technology vision.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=91

Vyomesh Joshi, Exec. VP, Imaging and Personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard (3 min. 10 sec.)
Hewlett-Packard's Vyomesh Joshi dismisses "convergence" as an unhelpful word and describes HP's four-pronged strategy for what consumers want in their digital home: content, search, personalization, and community.
http://www.cramereventmedia.com/videoviews/videoView.aspx?videoViewID=96

Comments on media coverage of the London bombings

By Charlene Li

I’ve been on a blissful vacation for the past week in the Sierra foothills, hiking trails, jumping into water holes, and eating tons of good camp food. And also, totally unplugged with no access to cell phones or the Internet. Withdrawal symptoms from RSS feeds and eBay auction depravation lasted all of about 30 minutes.

When I came home on Sunday night and started checking my personal emails, I noticed a short “We’re all right” email from friends who had moved recently to London. Odd, I thought – it was nice to know that they had survived the move, but that was over three months ago! Then my husband came and told me about the London bombings. We had had absolutely no idea that they had happened. We'd lost a friend in 9/11 and my first thought was "not again."

I then realized that I was in an interesting situation – I could experience a major news event “from scratch”, so to speak. My goal: to find out as much information as quickly as possible. So I sat for a full minute to figure out my information strategy.

First stop: CNN.com. Nice timelines, good photos and videos. I noticed that there were plenty of requests for stories, photos, and videos, but for the most part, it was company-produced content. There was a link to a compilation of emails sent in by readers. The most poignant – one pointing out that the bus bombing took place just 50 meters from a park where a statue of Gandhi stands. .

Next stop: news.BBC.co.uk. Great overview and also some fantastic compilations of comments, photos, and videos from witnesses to the attacks. At this time they are up to four pages of content.

But where are the blogs? Next stop: the blog/feed search engines. Only Technorati highlighted a special section they had developed around the London bombings. Lots of great links, but it was hard to shift the wheat from the chaff. One interesting link found on Technorati -- thanks to links contributed by Furl/Del.icou.us -- went back to the BBC...a story on blogs covering the bombings.

Last stop: Several of the blogs I found through Technorati pointed me to Wikipedia which has a very comprehensive overview.

Observations: Traditional media outlets were able to give a quick overview with great graphics, professional coverage, and good analysis. The people on the street perspective provided the personal connection to the fear, shock, and pain experienced by Londoners, while Wikipedia provided tremendous context.

Which one is the best? It’s like asking me which one of my children I love the most. Each news source has unique features that I treasure, and I couldn’t imagine my news experience being complete without them. My only wish – that the traditional news outlets would do a better job providing links to alternative sources so that it’s easier to get that comprehensive point of view. It’s likely that I will still begin my next intensive news experience with traditional outlets, but if Technorati and Wikipedia continue to do such an outstanding job pointing me to great resources, traditional media will soon find themselves with one less regular viewer.

Update: The original title of this post was "Getting plugged into the London bombings". Thanks to the comment from James, I realized that this was inappropriate, hence the title change.

Google Video potentially offers business model options

By Charlene Li

Word on the “street” is that Google will be offering a video player (John Battelle has details). Right now, the player will show only video that is in the Google video index and has been marked “free”, but as people have been uploading video to Google, they have the option to also set a price. So I have a friend who has a small business producing “how to” DVD training videos for non-technical consumers (such as how to install a computer home network). Instead of pressing disks, he could be uploading and selling the video on Google.

But I want to propose another business model option – advertising. What if instead of charging consumers he could get advertising dollars from equipment manufacturers and high speed Internet providers? Hmmm, Google has this little thing called AdSense that it could easily tap for advertising – I’ve written in the past how they could expand their text ad networking into rich media and video.

And wither competitors like Yahoo!, Blinkx, and AOL/SingingFish? I believe they are aiming primarily at traditional content producers that are willing to put their “quality” videos online – the winner in that game will be the one that’s most skillful at convincing the producers that they won’t lose their shirts in a deal. Meanwhile, Google will be actively soliciting the millions of smaller, lesser known video producers scattered in and outside Hollywood.

This draws me to another idea – I was at a non-profit last week for the premier of The New Heroes, a PBS production that features 12 social entrepreneurs (airs in two segments June 28^th and July 5^th – it’s fantastic!). The guest speaker and narrator of the film was Robert Redford, a social entrepreneur himself in that he founded the Sundance Film Festival as a way for independent voices to be heard and showcased.

But even getting into Sundance and other film festivals is tough these days – and getting picked up by a studio is a long shot. So imagine a day when a young video director and her producer “premier” a movie online and develops a strong following. Rather than having to court distributors, measure opening weekend box office takes, and negotiate DVD distribution, the movie could stay online for its entire life.