Wired talks to bona fide media disruptors Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstr"m, the men who just launched their next potential media bomb Joost, the Web TV venture formerly known as "The Venice Project." Author Fred Vogelstein talks of his experience demo-ing the service, and he's suitably impressed, particularly by the quality with which it delivers TV content over today's broadband Web connections. Friis treats him to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, a National Geographic special and re-runs of "Rocky and Bullwinkle," then turns to him and says proudly, "It even looks pretty good hooked up to my …

When Time Magazine named "You" as its person of the year, political journalists had to suppress a gag, while those in the media weren't entirely convinced, either. Why? Isn't "You" the future of media as we know it? Nope, it could just be a fad, not the death knell for traditional media companies. Will interest in social media wane? Of course, but it certainly won't go away. As in other mediums, we're ultimately dealing with a meritocracy, meaning the best content will rise to the top. "You" needs to generate profits to have a say. So …

Can't say we didn't tell you so, but the acquisition of Advertising.com by AOL in 2004 is proving to be the best deal the Web giant ever made. Whereas other parts of its business tanked, Advertising.com, which buys ad inventory and resells it to advertisers through a variety of programs on a cost-per-thousand or cost-per-action basis, has thrived. Indeed, the ad network's steady growth was a big reason AOL could successfully leave behind its subscription business and focus instead on selling ads. Most importantly for shareholders, AOL has suddenly transformed from a dead weight to a driving force …

Steve Jobs options scandal? With 21 million iPods sold, $7.1 billion in revenues, including a billion-dollar fourth quarter profit, and the beginning a year which will see the debut of more consumer products than ever before, investors could be forgiven for forgetting about the whole options backdating scandal that pervaded Apple Computer for so many years. In fact, Apple is the new Google of the consumers-electronics industry, gaining incredible media attention with each new product launch, while posting the kind of growth--a 78% gain in net income last quarter--that would make anyone overlook a slight blip in accounting …

Google continues to take a hit for not being as profitable a media buy as it used to be. Brandt Dainow of the Web analytics firm ThinkMertrics proclaims that bidding for first position simply isn't worth what it used to be. That goes against nearly six years of search-marketing wisdom, but Dainow says a recent analysis of a campaign his company conducted at Christmas time shows there's no relationship between the position of an Ad Words ad and the chance of it being clicked on. The big factor is the text itself. The reason: people are …

Before we begin, let's be completely honest: it doesn't really matter what the CIO panel think about Apple's new iPhone--ultimately the market will decide. Remember, as TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer said, "Apple has cachet," which trumps everything else, so if consumers think the iPhone is cool, well, cool rules. What chief Internet and technology officers can tell you is if the iPhone is worth it from a money and technology standpoint. Six of 12 high-ranking tech professionals selected in a "jury" by Silicon.com, said "no." Here's why: The price, at between $500 and $600 depending on storage …

Savvy Web users are ready for a better way to search, and the Web's giants have been quietly testing new search tools. The are quietly setting up satellite search engines that say nothing about their parent affiliation. SearchMash, launched by Google in September, is the Google search engine. But it also contains a series of tabs, which allow users to filter by "video," "image," "blog" or even "Wikipedia." Yahoo and Microsoft are testing the same functions through AlltheWeb.com and MsDewey.com, respectively. The latter is a strange take on the search engine host, recalling the days of …

Search luminary John Battelle weighs in the vague concept of "Blog 2.0," which he outlined during his annual predictions for the New Year. Per his nomenclature, nearly every blog out there can be regarded as "bog 1.0"--including his own Searchblog. But the coming years will see improvements in how bloggers monetize their sites, through a combination of better content management, site navigation, "widgets," and...marketing. Indeed, bloggers will become savvier at driving traffic to their sites in a bid to compete better with professionally produced content. One problem is that blogs are conversational in nature, possessing a certain rhythm that …

Those who closely follow Web spending know that LowerMyBills.com is consistently one of the Web's biggest ad spenders. Even if you didn't know that, you've seen their ads: dancing cowboys, rooftop dancers, dressed up dogs and cats all touting the golden road of home refinance. According to TNS Media Intelligence, LowerMyBills.com spent nearly $75 million on those ads in the first 11 months of 2006. And they're everywhere. Whatever you think of the surreal flashing images, which have nothing to do with low-interest loans, they work. Rather like the unavoidable pop-up, LowerMyBills' ads are so flashy you …

"The age of the blockbuster is over," Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson pronounced to a group of television executives during his keynote at the annual National Association of Television Program Executives conference in Las Vegas. That theme, of course, is echoed in Anderson's widely cited work on the future of media fragmentation, "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More," which he was presumably there to promote. During his speech, Anderson championed sites like YouTube and chided anachronisms, like this one from IAC/InterActive Corp. chairman Barry Diller: "People with talent won't be displaced by …