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.

When the Yahoo-Google-Microsoft fiasco is finally over -- and it is not -- it will be instructive to tally the time, money and business opportunities wasted in the interest of Jerry Yang trying to protect his independence and legacy -- all too late.

The broadcast networks' reported $9.2 billion upfront tally looks like numerical magic. The trick will be to keep the ad dollars coming in--even as the program ratings continue to decline. Although media analysts and executives were expecting the worst, network exec say they locked up about $100 million more in upfront commitments than last year, despite a weak economy. What is going on?

Doc Searls, a veteran ad man turned scholarly blogger, cracked the code on interactive advertising and connections nearly 10 years ago in an Internet bubble treatise dubbed "The Cluetrain Manifesto." It is as insightful today as it was controversial then.

When CEO Steve Jobs raises the technology bar, everybody wins--but Apple walks away with the prize. The 3G iPhone is a spring board for advanced devices in the home. Apple's super-smart phone and others like it could become the digital gatekeeper, trumping Google's applications and Microsoft's software.

As newspapers and magazines struggle with digital, it's fair to ask whether the Web's viral McMedia will ever rival print publishing's great reads. We must strike a compromise before we lose more penetrating, fact-checking print journalism to the brevity and glib babble of online posts.

Michael Eisner has blown the lid off the prevailing fallacy about online video: that money is or soon will be made, advertising dollars are rolling in and content producers are adequately reimbursed. Not yet. To make it work, all levels of content producers must help build tiered payment models.

The Internet age's relentless glare of headlines, comments, statistics and instant analysis presents corporate executives, the media and consumers with a new dilemma: determining the truth.

How dangerously wide can the gulf between core revenue losses and new revenue gains become before CBS must resort to a bigger strategic deal? CBS' slow-growth prospects could prompt it to go private to essentially opt out of the public glare, while it recasts its core broadcast businesses and its balance sheet. Next year's digital conversion could find CBS wrestling with its own shadow.