The Chris Anderson discussion was a uniquely Hollywood cocktail of the enlightened apocalypse. About 60 guests, all in the blockbuster business, a mix of actors, agents, artists, studio execs, media types, digital entrepreneurs, game developers and political commentators gathered to hear a polite version of their own eulogy, complete with Q & A.

The event was at the Bel Air home of entertainment mogul Peter Guber. The backdrop couldn’t have been more poignant. Chris sat in front of Guber’s massive wall of awards, an honorarium of old-media triumphs, and delivered his take on how the sky is falling and why that’s OK. Guber, who is no stranger to managing rowdy personalities, (he ran studios for years, but more germane teaches a entertainment class at UCLA), did a stellar job of giving Chris a forum to speak in what could have been hostile waters.

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Tonight I’m going to hear Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine, speak about his upcoming book, “Free.” In a previous post I presented my position on the culture of free, the gift economy and how I think it’s driving the quality of content and applications towards amateur hour. It will be interesting to hear Chris address web economics and I hope to engage him in a discussion about what this means for the future of web-based entertainment content.

I’m specifically interested in Google and how they’ve enabled the culture of free online. From my perspective, Google is bad for business. Let me qualify that, bad for business-as-usual (added). By offering everything you need on the web for free, Google has effectively put web-based business opportunities on life support. (more…)

My recent post “Economic Constipation and Digital Malnutrition” was an attempt to critically analyze Mark Cuban’s provocative May 4th post entitled “The Ala Carting of Video on the Net - Will it lead to disaster?”.

Incidentally, it was my most trafficked day and much to my surprise, I received a comment from one of my favorite bloggers, Hank Williams, who writes the influential whydoeseverythingsuck.com?”

Mark’s post has sparked a debate that has spilled over from the circle of web video bloggers into a broader conversation. Next week I’m in New York for the Advertising 2.0 event and plan to bring Mark’s position, and my rebuttal, to the panel on which I’m speaking. (more…)

Despite its cliche, the question of “what is the next version of the web” provokes as intense a debate as you’ll find within digital circles. Web 3.0 definitions vary wildly with any number of partisan descriptions coming from very smart, yet fundamentally biased people.

These descriptions are all forward thinking, yet intrinsically flawed. They neglect that versioning, or defining the next version of the web, isn’t just about software or hardware. It’s about culture.

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The gift economy that powers much of web 2.0 is unsustainable. The internet offers an unmatched infrastructure for the distribution of communication, information and entertainment. But professional creators i.e. bloggers, video producers or application developers that build web 2.0 products and help us realize the value of that infrastructure won’t keep making their content and giving it away for free much longer. Why should they? (more…)

Lew Henderson, who oversees the William Morris Agency’s digital business, is one of the most respected players in the digital entertainment business. And for good reason. He’s been making deals during every cycle of convergence fever: from the CD-ROM to Bubble 1.0 to the Dot Com Bust to Web 2.0 to Rise of the Social Nets to the M&A Frenzy of ‘05/’06 to Video Site Landgrab of ‘07 to today. That depth of experience translates to a sophisticated perspective of the ways things work. When Lew talks, I listen closely.

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