Venture capital firms are locked and loaded, and engaged in target shooting. Hitting the bull's-eye will be challenging until valuations, revenue flow and the stock market settle down, paving the way for profitable returns and exits. And that could take at least another year.

Efforts by the Chinese government to restrict Internet access for visiting press seem uncomfortably paradoxical with its desire to celebrate its new brand of democracy with the Beijing Olympic Games. It will be interesting to see how the Western media--especially host network NBC--deals with any censorship.

The ball is now in Microsoft's court to resume a Yahoo search deal or merger. Time Warner is completing plans to spin off the dial-up access and other ancillary businesses of AOL in order to more easily sell the Internet giant to Yahoo or Microsoft.

Some on Wall Street are willing to bet that the only two satellite TV service providers in the U.S. could go the way of recently merged XM and Sirius radio, as long as both Dish Network Corp. and DirecTV can maneuver through economic tough times. Dish may have the harder sell.

The $3 billion bite that the collapsing domestic automobile market is taking out of this year's advertising spend is a dramatic sign of seeper, broader bad news set to hit company balance sheets the second half of 2008. But there are measures that will soften the blow.

Local TV broadcasters besieged by an advertising freefall and maneuvering the transition to digital have to be asking themselves: "What would Google do?" It might not be a bad idea to wonder what the online giant--which is hotly pursuing broadcasters' unused wireless white spectrum--would do to fashion a digital salvation plan for local TV in what is shaping up to be the worst local TV advertising market in decades. It's far from over, and in the end could have a devastating impact on some TV station owners.

The country's fragile economy and growing obsession with wireless have snuck up on the bundled triple play of services the cable industry designed as its salvation. How much damage ensues will be a matter of how proactive cable operators are in securing their continued dominance.