The threat of the first NFL lockout since 1987 would be an opportunity for innovative minds to create novel and compelling new pastimes to partially fill the void left by an aborted pro football season.

The introduction of Apple's iPad ignited the vibrant new platform of e-tablets, which promises to reinvent advertising on interactive devices. It will not only siphon ad dollars away from other media, but will work as a catalyst for new spending.

Despite all the fuss over Netflix, Hulu and iTunes, the honors could go to cloud-based Amazon. It already leads in bringing those areas together around content and products by thinking outside the silo. It is best positioned to win the integrated interactive war.

As the new majority owner of NBC Universal, Comcast's best days of Comcastic financial growth could be behind it. Its blow-away financial performance at the end of 2010 as the country's dominant pure-play cable operator might not be repeated -- in light of the uncertain cash demands and ROI of some of its newly acquired NBCU assets.

With mobile platforms reaching critical mass and hitting a global tipping point, connected mobile devices are unleashing profound changes. Embracing and adapting these forces will enable companies to create digital strategies that fuel their economic engine.

There was nothing more effective during this week's rapid pace of events in the Middle East and in the United States than zippy broadband shortcuts like Twitter and Skype used by the masses to disseminate and leverage information. It was free. It was fast. It was real and gritty -- as long as the government left the Internet on.

The stock market is getting frothy again over hefty bets being placed on the exploding value of companies poised to capitalize on an improving economy and the rousing digital revolution. But it's time to slow down and take a hard look at what's really happening.

The newly merged Comcast NBC Universal's biggest problem isn't outmoded prime-time ratings or over-the-top threats to cable television. It is the absence of a compelling, coordinated social-networking strategy to aid the challenging integration of its content and distribution businesses.

ESPN, one of television's most powerful brands, has everything it takes to be an interactive powerhouse -- from engaged fans tethered to their mobile devices and videogame consoles to live events that are a magnate for consumers and marketers.

Comcast's imminent takeover of NBC Universal will create the most expansive and challenged corporate arena for embracing trends in mobile commerce, paid content and hyper-local connectivity. The merger will redefine media in 2011.