Big autos' big dive in stock market valuations and sales spells serious problems for domestic advertising, as it thrusts local television stations and newspapers into what could be their darkest days yet.

In the absence of a universal form of media measurement--which isn't coming soon--companies are opting to focus on the sliver of metrics that work to their advantage, to tell advertisers what they want to hear. Until all media flows through a digital filter, a compelling universal standard of measurement is not possible.

What does Bollywood see in Steven Spielberg that the U.S. entertainment investment community doesn't? At a time when America's natural resources are attracting foreign investors, we risk losing some of our best and brightest. Surely the director of "ET" and "Indiana Jones," who happily concedes "I dream for a living," is a major American treasures we would never allow to fall into international hands.

Now that LinkedIn has mastered how to monetize online social networking, it is out to do itself one better. Supported by advertising, premium subscriptions, classifieds and corporate solutions. LinkedIn is stunning proof that social networks need not rely solely on advertising.

At the moment, some digital content providers are getting paid something, some of the time. That's hardly a firm business model for future growth. The faster online players gravitate from old ways of making money on new platforms, the sooner they will hit pay dirt. But it could take a while.

Sometimes, it seems like Google is going to take over the world. But just as a mainstream Internet made Google's pervasive, innovative applications possible, deeper levels of interactivity will yield the next generation of enterprising players. Still, one wonders what's ahead for Google.

There is an urgent need for all media companies, regardless of their legacy or core businesses, to accurately measure their success by relying on interactive quotients. Such a new metrics template will measure what matters most in the new digital world: generating interactive revenues.

Don't look now, but television and online video are being swept into a third wave of media--emerging broadband and mobile media markets--which is expected to generate $6 billion in advertising and paid content fees and $17 billion in asset value by 2011. So much for the online video-burst bubble theory. Welcome to Television 2.0.

Monetizing the content, causes and communities that define public media--without compromising its noncommercial standards--is good business. And it assures its future financial viability. Public media can creatively use Web 2.0 tools to leverage its strong ties to special-interest consumers to generate revenues to offset declines in sponsorship and government funding.

Public broadcasting may be better situated for the digital transition than its commercial broadcasting counterparts, having forged its fortunes on content bound by special interests, political issues and civic action. But it could be obscuring its own passage to financial sustainability through interactive ties with its close-knit constituents.