• The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday, January 10, 2007 11 AM

2007 will be the year of localization for the media business. What exactly does that mean? The closer integration of local products and services into our everyday media consumption.

For instance, how useful would it be if your default home page brought daily news and weather and interfaced with your social-networking profile, individual electronic payment services, daily schedule, budgeting, shopping suggestions, email list?

These interactive connections between consumer online destinations and activities, and retailers and commerce, could prove a potent alternative to Google. Indeed, but such integration also requires the kind of algorithm-based technology that only a Google could deliver.

That kind of integration could prove to be crucial for personal living, but it would require the collaboration of too many companies with different user relationships and interests. However, this could be the province of the flagging Web portal business--though it would turn Yahoo, Google and News Corp.'s MySpace into direct competitors. Further industry consolidation would spur localization growth, such as a Yahoo purchase of Time Warner's AOL.

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