CNBC's Maria Bartiromo Asks "Who's in Charge Here?" - It's Anyone's Guess. MediaBizBuzz April 7

This Sunday quotmoney honeyquot Maria Bartiromo posed just that question to George Soros They were talking Bear Stearns and handicapping odds for recession slash inflation but the query might have been asked of these Captains of Industry and Chief Executive It was that tumultuous a week Some folks like Jerry Seinfeld cheated death Others like Clinton Chief Strategist Mark Penn did not survive The Market continued its fiscal arrhythmia secrets of the Wireless Auction were revealed MySpace Music was uncloaked while it was learned that iTunes had surpassed WalMart as the 1 music retailer Microsoft gave Yahoo three weeks to sell out or else Ligitation over Intellectual Property was all the rage In some cases these moves were innovative others like Comcast39s announcement to offer quotextreme highspeedquot to Minnesotans or ATampampT39s admission that it paid more for its spectrum dammit just so that it could circumvent that quotopen accessquot not so much Let39s separate the retreads from the epiphanies Not that there39s anything wrong with stealing from the best as long as its credited To paraphrase Mark Twain reports of the Media39s death have been exaggerated Earlier this week Jack Myers sought to recast the economic picture for media ad buying While not bombastic his research showed a modest increase compared to TNS Media Intelligence39s dour forecast MampampA39s in media reported the Silicon Alley Insider were downright fullthrottle especially they added if you had quotopen sourcequot as part of your business plan To that formula I39ll add quotanalyticsquot 50M to CoreMetrics and of course quotblog networkquot Federated39s rumored funding gives it a valuation of 200M In this uncertain climate on the heels of the Upfronts how goes Television NBC consulted the archives and is trying sponsorships as opposed to commercial ad buys That said Convergence Consulting pegged online TV watching at 9 of the viewing total across platforms yet only 2 of the ad budgets were going to online buys How are the broadcast networks faring online Depends on the data comScore gave the nod to CBS but Silicon Alley Insider was more inclined to side with Nielsen Online Video Census39 beknighting of ABC while noting that it is imperfect it doesn39t gauge Fox39s Idol does aggregate all of NBCcom properties doesn39t CBS39s distribution partners Curiously Hitwise finds that reality dominates online 7 of the Top 10 shows owing perhaps to their savvy use of Web 2039s voting chatting polling TVWeek reports that Google hired Harris Interactive to study the efficacy of YouTube39s ads Voila They found it equivalent to TV in intent to buy engagement and interest Color me skeptical until I see the hard data Even though Hulu NBC39s JV with Fox has less ad minutes than trad TV the Times didn39t like the experience I like it just fine Blinkx launched with AdHoc its ad targeting platform as Times Online incorrectly reported that Joost was in retrenchment Rafat Ali actually phoned Joost to find their story inaccurate MipTV starts today in Cannes paidContent39s there Speaking of mobile the power of Walt Mossberg was reinforced last week A slip of the lip that a 3G iPhone is but a mere 60 days hence and it39s the talk of the blogosphereMusical ChairsThe state of the recording industry evolved a year39s time in the last week Really Judges in New York and Boston contradicted one another as they ruled on whether simply uploading files to a peer to peer network constituted criminality PaidContent interviewed MySpace CEO Chris De Wolfe asking why MySpace Music would be a JV with SONY BMG Universal and Warner rather than part of MySpace proper It also produced Peter Levinsohn39s internal heralding a FIM reorg Valleywag put forth a strong argument that music is no longer a core product for the recording industry citing JayZ39s signing with Live Nation but for promotional value it39s not pretty but it may be true EMI39s newest exec hire ExGoogler Glen Merrill get me my smelling salts just might agree Lastfm is finally streaming CBS Radio Hold the presses The XM Sirius might be AOK for the DOJ but not so fast says John Kerry While iTunes was tops Amazon39s music store hasn39t lit a fire despite the fact that it has to since Amazon can39t give its physical media DVDs cds book away That said Shelly Palmer39s gungho over its TextBuyIt app for mobile All in all Silicon Alley39s Fred Wilson is convinced that we39re on the threshold of something new We Own the AirwavesEnd of last week the FCC veil of silence ended While no one was surprised at the players they themselves had some curious statements PC World reported that Verizon would build out its broadband and mobile offerings by 2010 no shock here but ATampampT seemed to balk at participating in quotopen accessquot stating that they had specifically paid a premium 3x for the right to circumvent this policy Your move Kevin Martin Comcast which had recently been in the crosshairs of the FCC due to its quotnetwork management practicesquot suddenly announced that it would be offering quotwidebandquot services to Minnesotans For 14999month such a steal you39re downloading at 50Mps When GigaOM39s eponymous Om Malik contacted Comcast about its 180 he learned that quotbandwidth hogsquot would be managed irrespective of the type of downloading So it becomes clear We don39t care about your piracy just the traffic Shotgun WeddingsBallmer to Yang Three Weeks And I39ll See You In the Boardroom Absence is not making Microsoft39s heart fonder for Yahoo It will not raise its bid despite the fact that Yahoo made some inroads against Google39s ad sales marketing share and AMP has potential Why not buy Salesforcecom instead Since Google didn39t sink billions into wireless spectrum it39s flush enough to buy Skype from eBay and think of the fit Virtually AccountableLast week being the Virtual Worlds conference in NYC there was a flurry of announcements and concurrent stories We profiled embedded Second Life journalist Wagner James Au the Wall Street Journal focused on how startups like Qwaq and even the SecondLife Grid were offering businesses a more targeted and productive experience inworlds The New York Times looked at Vitavy which is building 3D chatrooms within Facebook a teaser for the 3D Web to come Streisand Effects We39re still at a crossroads where fair use and Intellectual Property are lagging behind the times TechCrunch ridiculed the DMCA takedown complied to by Yahoo of a video clip of a sock puppet riffing off the Village People39s YMCA Apple threwdown against New York City for its GreenNYC apple logo Woody Allen called treyf unkosher on American Apparel for appropriating his image in an ad A couple literally called quotthe Boringsquot asked Google for damages for quotStreet Viewquot pictures of their swimming pool on the Web While it39s a questionable affair that failed musician and sociopath Charles Manson used a Creative Commons license to put out his recordings it is good news that the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation earmarked 4M for the copyleft nonprofit While the New York Press tries to debunk Malcolm Gladwell39s coinage of quotThe Tipping Pointquot as a concept REM quickly admitted to riffing off an improv group39s routine and subsequently credited them Far from freaking about breaking copyright Radiohead allowed its second single Nude to be remixed by fans and is providing the tracks for them to work with best mix to be announced on Radioheadremixcom on May 1st The band gets it copyright was designed to promulgate not inhibit creativity There39s been a back and forth about whether or not the Writers Strike had an impact on TV viewing Nielsen reported that its Live7 network totals were down 617 while cable up 14 TV usage was flat meaning folks just changed channels Target Cast begs to differ it found that NBC39s average unit cost for a primetime ad spot was 247 down compared to Q1 2007 We think that South Park gets it just right Speaking of change being the only constant someone please squelch the MSNBC rumor of a McCainThompson meeting If the two were running mates against either a Clinton or Obama it39d be the Grumpy Old Men ticket Not exactly a bridge to tomorrow

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CNBC's Maria Bartiromo Asks "Who's in Charge Here?" - It's Anyone's Guess. MediaBizBuzz April 7

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