• by March 15, 2011

Kicking off day three of South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, media heavyweight Barry Diller shared his views on many things digital.

Billed as a distinguished speaker rather than a keynote, Diller sat in an interview format before a standing-room only crowd in the main ballroom at the Austin convention Center.

On whether the current tech valuations are reflective of there being a bubble, Diller quipped: "We're pumping it up pretty nicely. The place to be is on the invention of things." He said that because of bandwidth and the ability to do video, with mobile and apps, the fact that money chasing it is not that interesting. "What is interesting is the amount of invention going on."

Diller, chairman of Expedia and IAC, said "money is going to be lost. Who cares?" which drew laughter.

"You cannot say if you have very little net revenue but have a huge amount of users, if I project what will happen to that, I suppose you could get some huge valuations, but that was true a couple of years ago. You just say if there is a willing dumb buyer, that's ok."

What would Diller buy? "What interests me is starting businesses on our own and investing in invention or ideas and not in chasing crowds. I've never been an investor and I got into the Internet early and was lucky.

"The Internet is a miracle. It shouldn't have happened. You push a button and publish to the world."

Diller was asked his views on a number of categories.

On the Daily Beast: It is an original Internet product. Then along comes Newsweek that was becoming "more and more irrelevant" With Newsweek, it is an evolutionary product. It's an experiment. "I don't know if this experiment of fusing these two things together is going to work.

"In the end, if you don't have a business you can't do anything."

On the iPad: "I found it amazing they put out a product called the Daily. The product itself is interesting but it's an experiment too." Diller wondered aloud why anyone would create an original product for just one thing but then admitted he has an iPad.

On net neutrality: No one should be allowed to get between the content provider and the consumer. Because video uses so much bandwidth, noting Netflix, more capacity will have to be built and charge more for it. But it would not be the death of entrepreneurship.

On Google TV type products: The first product wasn't good but it will evolve. "They'll figure it out but they'll be run over by the Xbox, which is ready today.

On the economy: down on the U.S. international tax policy.

On the Obama administration: Priority was to get us out of the recession. The new financial rules don't make any sense to anyone. "It's sloppy governance. You can't have 350 people write a law."

On content, context or conversation: "I don't think anything is king."

Advice on startups: get only enough money to get it started, give away as little as possible, keep your head down, do not listen or talk with anyone and when it gets out there listen to your audience and keep going on your path. "Everything else is a waste of time."

On what Diller learned at SXSWI: How to ride a Segway.