Content ain’t king, cash is. And yet when it comes to digital media, the outlook for paid content looks at best contradictory, and at worst, bleak. Consumers will happily pay a small fortune for a downloadable ring tone, but consider 99c for an entire track from the iTunes store to be the height of generosity. The question left begging is vital for all media owners. Why does the choice of medium dictate not only the form of content but also its perceived value?

Looks like the now infamous Internet "Mea Culpa" Speech was only Rupert Murdoch's warm up act. Earlier in the week, Fox revealed its plans for a new interactive division to be headed up by former online sports impresario Ross Levinsohn. So how does Newscorp planned acquisition of Intermix Media, which owns the community network MySpace.com fit in its broader portal ambitions?

Naomi Klein notwithstanding, Brands are back on the agenda. Once you abandon the mid twentieth century view of brands as just a cynical megamix of product benefits, you are open to musing about a more interesting question. What are people actually buying when they knowingly pay a premium for a brand name?

What makes a good market? Plenty of buyers and sellers certainly. But with competition in the web classifieds space pushing the value of all listings to zero, capturing critical mass through disruptive pricing tactics will no longer work. Market leadership now depends on moving past the ‘newspaper ads on the web’ model to creating true value exchanges.

Blogs are the new black. Whether you are a Fortune 500 CEO, an ambitious engineer working the late shift or a promiscuous Singaporean teen – you’ve got to have one. For the uninitiated, the prospect of adding yet more words to the ocean of information on the web may seem futile. But fame and power await those who manage to break out of the mass of hyperlinked opinion.
No wonder that media companies are also starting to get religion. Readers secretly want to be moguls too.