Who thought Bill Gates had the comic genius to be a consummate straight man for Jerry Seinfeld and the right stuff to be an online video star? Emerging digital content and advertising will never be the same!

There is no transformation more important at this moment than the transformation of leadership and the ability to constructively guide people, organizations and nations. It requires those who can improve long-term growth prospects, while risking their reputation or poor quarterly reports in the process.

It remains to be seen whether so-called new media or more traditional media stands to gain more from the arrangement, which essentially opens the floodgates on more proactive marketing and transacting with target consumers -- but it may encourage Google to take on Mad Ave agencies.

At the dawn of a new interactive age in which empowered consumers are reliably connected through nearly every electronic device but their TV sets, America's mass-media pastime is barely keeping up. Digital TV--intended to open the door on interactive commerce and content--is a transition in name only.

Why isn't there a device that will liberate the television experience the same way Apple's iPod revolutionized recorded music for consumers? The introduction of a true so-called TV iPod--just like the original music iPod--would be dazzling enough to be an instant hit with consumers.

Although the popularity of Internet video is booming on all devices, content producers and aggregators are anxious to unlock the secrets of monetization. That may become increasingly more difficult as many marketers consider double-digit reductions in campaign media budgets and ad production for next year.

Don't bother looking for Google under your bedsheets tonight. It's not there, yet. But it's positioned to be just about everywhere else. Google's latest maneuver in a well-honed strategy and ecosystem for seizing control of the digital world is its beta Chrome browser.

The objective in spinning off four chunks of InterActiveCorp into new publicly traded entities was to simplify and improve investor support for its encompassing 30-plus individual Web properties. Some of those properties would be fodder for mergers and acquisitions in better times--which presents a short-term challenge for Diller & Co.

Regardless of your political or technological persuasion, you have to concede this is a time of extraordinary, inexorable change that demands a new brand of leadership. This parallel political and technological transformation is being driven by a powerful force: the grassroots empowerment of people.