The one thing harder than creating an online brand is leveraging an existing one to do so. Conventional wisdom holds that the more channels in which a consumer experiences your brand, the better. Maybe so for retailers. But for media companies, the task is more complex. The web is not just another delivery channel - it is an entirely new product platform with its own house rules for attracting audiences and making money. And that is more of a headache than an aspirin for companies with longstanding mastheads to defend.

As any retailer worth his salt knows - its not how much you sell that counts, its what you sell it for. The rebounding online advertising economy has obscured a critical fact. Many online publishers have no idea when it comes to managing inventory and yields, and instead embrace a value destructive approach to sales which neither serves their shareholders nor advertisers.

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?