What’s there to say about CES—it’s exhausting, exhilarating, a pain in the ass and there’s a lot of waiting in lines. My feet hurt, but I saw the immediate future of the media-technology world. It’s a world going in opposite directions. We are looking to connect everything together and we’re looking as having the freedom to roam. We want portability but we want to have all our gadgets and gizmos connected to alow us to play anything, anytime, where.

This “clip” is long, but has lots of cool stuff inside. Enjoy.

Mike and Allen discuss the implications of theYahoo-eBay partnership announced this week.  Is it a partnership that could have been forged awhile ago or an alliance necessitated by today's circumstances.

In today's installment, Mike and Allen trade shots over a curious new addition to Yahoo's stable of beta products, Yahoo Answers. What does it mean to extend to the online world the physical world experience of asking a general question to a group of people? We try to provide . . . an answer.

 

 

 

I am a big fan of Widgets. In fact, when Apple first showed me its Widget engine, I saw it as the ultimate ability for a user to bypass funky Web browsers and connect directly to content. After Yahoo! bought Konfabulator, it was only a matter of time before it launched a full-scale Widget service. Here it is

Yahoo! launched a new search shortcut today, the details of which can be found on the Yahoo! blog. Essentially, it allows you to type in “shortcut” in the search box to take the stress off of your tired fingers. A keystroke here, a keystroke there…maybe you can ward off carpal tunnel a few more years.

 

My favorite shortcut is the one that literally starts with a bang (!). One that starts with a bang can take you directly to a given website. I made one called !Wot that takes me to this site.

 

Maybe I am missing something. I’d much rather have Yahoo! incorporate these shortcuts with Konfabulator to allow me to create graphical desktop shortcuts that avoid the search box altogether.

This rich media tsunami should hit our shores in early 2006.

 

If published reports are true, the intrigue surrounding the AOL-MSN-Time Warner-Google courtship has reached a conclusion: Google will buy a 5% stake in AOL and remain AOL’s primary source for advertising. MSN becomes the bridesmaid and Yahoo! (who was never seriously in the mix) moves along its separate path of Internet media dominance.

There are many moving parts here:

1. Google may covet AOL’s large base of email and IM users. The conversion process from aol.com addresses to gmail and Google Talk accounts could be relatively easy given Google’s technological savvy. Such a move puts Google on par with Yahoo! And MSN (Hotmail) in the vital path of creating a communications layer that allows users to store, subscribe to and share content.

2. Given AOL.com’s path toward becoming the leading video portal, Google will accelerate its play in the business of extending its ad platform to deliver ads to video clips and Podcasts. This would challenge such players sas Lightningcast and Eyeblaster in this space. Also, it puts pressure on Yahoo! to move quickly to extend its ad platform.

3. This puts AOL’s dial-up business into the spotlight. With this move further down the .com path, what is the company to do with its approximately 19 million dial-up customers? A likely scenario is for AOL to offer its dial-up customers on a discounted basis to Verizon, SBC, etc.. and allow the telcos to offer former dial-up users their “768” DSL service that sells for $14.95 a month. There are some issues here given some of the existing relationships between Yahoo! & MSN with the telcos.

Yahoo! is not likely to respond with anything major. For MSN, in the midst of another reorg which again puts its Portal strategy in play, we’re likely to see an acceleration in its Windows Live efforts to keep pace with its competitors.

After seeing the top searches from Yahoo! for 2005, I think it’s time for me to go on vacation and get-reoriented to the real world. There are no top searches from the world of politics, critical world affairs or even such events as Hurricane Katrina. It makes you wonder if anyone over the age of 15 searches the Web.

 

The Yahoo! Search 2005 Overall Top 10 Searches:

1. Britney Spears

2. 50 Cent

3. Cartoon Network

4. Mariah Carey

5. Green Day

6. Jessica Simpson

7. Paris Hilton

8. Eminem

9. Ciara

10. Lindsay Lohan

When my 72-mile commute from Marin County to San Jose came to an end, my car-radio relationship with Howard Stern came to an end. Love him or hate him, he got me from my home to work in the wee hours and distracted me from the horror of my ride.

 

Today marks the last time I’ll be listening to Stern, live on K-ROCK, from my hotel in NY. That has also been a bit of traditional for me as a way of kicking off my travel work day off with a laugh. Howard is done (for now) on over the air radio in two days. In fact, Yahoo! will have a special online event to mark the day.

 

I toyed with the idea of buying a Sirrus radio, but decided against it. I just cannot imagine listening to Howard in my home in the morning. I have no commute, so his time on air does not coincide with any time I am in my car. So, like many others, today I’ll be saying goodbye to Howard Stern.

Good luck Howard; you may need it.

It's the end of the week and we decided we just had to do another 'cast. Highlights of todays 'cast -- Yahoo's RSS-enabled e-mail and Michael Robertson's latest shot across the music industry's bow.

Allen and Mike take on recent announcements from Microsoft and others that outlined various efforts to digitize and make searchable all the print material that exists, and then some.

 

It's an end-of-the-week grab-bag. (A marketing person would refer to it as a "synopsis of important industry events." Somebody else, like my mother, might label this 'cast nothing but garden variety rumor mongering.)

In any event, Allen and Mike share their recommendations on how Google could spend the $4 billion they just raised in their secondary offering.  Allen muses on the rumors about Microsoft and AOL.  Mike muses more about the Future of Music Summit in D.C.

Seriously, am I that impatient I cannot wait to type an entire word?