If today’s announcement that Google will launch Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s original web series across its network of AdSense sites sounds familiar that’s because the same parties made the exact same announcement last year. Someone, however, forgot to tell the New York Times, who managed to dust off the story, give it a fresh veneer and up the ante by quoting AdSense representative Kim Malone Scott as saying “We feel that we have recreated the mass media.”

Kim, you will never live that down.

No matter. I love what this deal represents, although I’m somewhat skeptical that users will adopt the model of clicking what has been defined as an advertisement in order to watch an advertisement in order to then watch a short blast of something MacFarlanely funny. (more…)

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…)

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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