I've been enjoying listening to the new city guides jointly released by Louis Vuitton and Soundwalk. Narrated by three well known local actors (Gong Li, Shu Qi, and Joan Chen) they blend personal anecdotes with ambient sounds and slick audio production.

The result is quite compelling. It's an amazing experience walking around a city, even one familiar to you, hearing someone else's perspectives on what you are seeing. And it's only going to get more sophisticated. As most of us start carrying GPS/phone/MP3 devices - geotagged audio tours are going to be the guide books of the future. Smart move by Louis Vuitton. After all, once luxury brands exhaust the possibilities of expensive objects there is only thing left to sell. Curated brand experiences.

There is a massive gap between traditional music industry economics and the rapidly evolving behavior of Asian media consumers. I spent a few days last week at the Music Matters conference in Hong Kong listening to some of the most senior record label executives dissect the complexities of their situation. Contradictions abound. Online piracy in China is rampant, and yet China Mobile made nearly US$1.7 billion last year selling caller ring back tones. Most of Baidu's traffic comes from its illicit MP3 search service, while authorised mobile download services in Japan are growing rapidly.

As always, there was a big white elephant. In this case - what happens when the consumer pressure for music to go free becomes irresistible - whether bundled with devices, streamed through licensing deals, or just downright freely available. When I interviewed Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk Music and Avril's Lavigne, he was more than ready to face that eventuality. His view was merchandise, events, and packaged fan access products would make up for the loss of CD sales. Paul McGuiness, in a controversial keynote, was less sanguine. He likened ISPs to shoplifters and accused them of rigging the market. Later in the conference, Bob Lefsetz ook cruel and unusual pleasure in ripping him apart.

The Asian music market is a subtle and fascinating study in the new dynamics of digital entertainment. For more details, stay tuned for the next episode of 'The Tomorrow Report' which will contain snippets of the conference, video interviews with some of the big industry personalities and an overview of the relevant market numbers. You can sign up for regular episodes either by email, iTunes or RSS.

Usually the rise and fall of commodity prices would be the last thing I'd be interested in. But the global drama unfolding over oil is riveting, particularly the broader historical context. Case in point is a piece in today's Financial Times looking at the demise of the 19th century Whaling industry, while the editorial in this week's Economist features an analysis of the 70s oil shock.

Look closely, and behind the recent rise of oil prices is a intricate opportunity/crisis ecosystem driven by the energy lust of developing Asian countries, the interplay of food prices and biofuel subsidies, the emerging bubble in Silicon Valley funded clean tech companies, and the waning geopolitical influence of the US in both China and the Middle East. Oil has become the ultimate example of a complex dynamic system. Not that it's just economics. Take shoene rukku for example - a Japanese style of short-sleeved business suit inspired by the last energy crisis. As Joi Ito pointed out in a post from 2002, back then even the Japanese prime minister enjoyed wearing them. Roll over Saville Row. It's time to turn off the AC.

Twitter apparently broke the news about the earthquake before the official earthquake tracking agency. QQ has aggregated video shot by its users from many of the affected areas, while amazing footage from mobile phones quickly found its way onto Tudou. And on the fund raising side, China Mobile has set up an effective system which lets subscribers donate by sending an SMS, which then gets charged to your phone bill. It's the future of charitable action. For more details keep an eye on Global Voices for their ongoing coverage.

High definition set top boxes, mobile TV, digital radio – all contenders for the future of media, right? Well, not exactly. It can be tempting to assume if something is digital it must be good. But there is a more subtle pattern at play. If you want to understand how traditional media is being disrupted – the key is not technology but audience behaviour.

South Korea is about as close to tech nirvana as it gets. Step on a subway, and you will see commuters mesmerised by tiny television tuners embedded in their mobile phones. The number of mobile TV users in Korea has reached 10 million in just two and half years. But as they and other mobile TV markets are discovering - there is trouble in paradise. Despite the hype of digital broadcast - no one is actually making money. Advertising on handheld devices in Korea accounts for a mere 0.2% of broadcast media advertising.

It’s becoming a familiar paradox. Around the world, governments and big companies are sinking billions to build new digital broadcast infrastructure. They are hoping that the lure of higher resolution, better sound and more channels will cover the costs of implementation and provide a bridge to the future of radio and television. But the funny thing is - innovation is already happening. Just not on broadcast.

There is a critical and frequently overlooked difference between broadcast transmission, and content delivered by the Internet. Broadcast is about beaming content to a particular audience at a particular point of time. On the Internet, content is broken into lots of small pieces, stored in the cloud and reassembled when people actually request it. True – at present it is less reliable and lower in resolution than digital broadcast - but it is also infinitely more flexible and adaptable.

Think about it. In February this year, ComScore reported that American audiences watched ten billion videos on the Internet. That is a huge number, but even more tellingly most of that consumption didn’t occur on websites controlled by TV networks but rather on YouTube. Community is a big part of the YouTube experience. Audiences can not only watch online video when they want - they can break it up, share it, embed it, blog about it or even remix it into new forms. Digital broadcasting might look prettier than its analogue predecessor – but the audience experience is fundamentally the same as it always was.

I like to think of the difference between broadcast and the Internet using the analogy of a pipe and a straw. You can pump a hell of lot of volume through a pipe, but its not particularly flexible. A pipe is fixed, pointing in one direction, and only has two settings – on or off. Now a straw, on the other hand, won’t let you draw down as much volume, but you do have one big advantage. You can take a sip whenever you like.

Broadcast is not going to die anytime soon. For a start, it’s a very efficient way to distribute content when combined with clever recording devices. If you own a digital video recorder at home, you will know what I mean. Mobile may soon experience a similar time-shifting renaissance. One of the reasons that Japan’s mobile TV service based on ‘1-Seg’ technology has been popular is because broadcasts are DRM free. Consumers can choose a TV show from an electronic program guide and record the show onto a memory card in their phone to watch later.

Time-shifting is a neat trick, but it doesn’t solve the tougher dilemma facing audiences – deciding what to watch or listen to. In a world of infinite content choices, the real issue is discovery. And that is better achieved on the web. Broadcast networks are programmed by professionals, but content on the Internet is organised by audiences themselves. Today’s teenagers don’t discover content on radio, they use social networks like Myspace, imeem, Facebook or MOG. Applications like Last.FM or iLike learn from the music you listen to and recommend other songs you might like based on other users. Buy TV shows on iTunes, and you can see other content that people with similar tastes to you have selected.

That’s the power of audience networks.

If you a major media company today, digital broadcasting may look like the obvious next step. But actually, you would be better off focusing on the more disruptive technology of web distribution. Broadcasters have done a pretty good job of using the web as promotion for their core assets. Now the real job is to turn it into a platform in its own right. In the last twelve months, the US TV networks have taken action – making some of their prime time schedule available as a free web stream the next day after broadcast. It’s a start, but not enough.

It’s inevitable that all the world’s entertainment will be available free on the web. Most of that content is already there – uploaded by audiences themselves – it’s just not particularly well organised. That will change. And traditional broadcasters need to quickly figure out whether they are going to be the ones to do it.