Nope – have just been MIA on the blog lately as we have been working around the clock on a new company focused on multisource online news. We’ll have news by the end of December. Season’s Greetings!

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a dinner held by the prestigious Capital Research and Management Company. With all the blogging about technologies, media companies and stocks it is certainly interesting that few bloggers ever mention CRMC. CRMC has been responsible for some of the most successful investments in media and technology. They often hold the #1 or #2 top position of institutional holdings at Internet giants like Google, Yahoo, TimeWarner, Microsoft and IAC. Click through on the links – think numbers like 512 million shares of Microsoft and 84 million shares of Yahoo. The people I met last night were warm, smart and very kind – they are also likely the smartest and most powerful folks in the room. Tech and media journalists often show up, take silly sideways pictures of posing CEO’s and fawn over or slam the executive team with little understanding that it is the big shareholders who decide whether the senior exexutives and their strategies stay or go. Hats off to CRMC’s investments and their smart, humble and low key profile.

Frontline’s “News Wars“ addresses the important conflict in the flow of information in our democracy and the constant struggle between institutions and the press for strategic footing in the battle. Lowell Bergman and team do a good job of presenting the battles in the context of today’s biggest stories. Frontline is one of the most important programs on television today.

While a student at the University of Missouri Graduate School of Journalism in the late 80’s Ibegan believing that institutions (goverment and corporations) had become more effective at managing their message than the press had become in presenting a multi-perspective story. Reagan and corporate public relations firms simply innovated and learned faster than the press.

Ken Auletta wrote an exceptional piece in “The New Yorker” 3 years ago discussing the issues Bergman raises – I have forwarded this article to many of my friends to help kick start this discussion.

Unfortunately, one of the only groups less trusted than the government is the press. Secondarily, we have a highly secretive administration that focuses on staying on message despite what the facts and the majority may present.

Information flow is migrating from the institutional to communal – blogging the Web has helped speed this trend. The trend to communal distribution has helped the press more than the government or corporations – just ask JetBlue.

The game now is to engage a larger audience than the blogosphere currently reaches and to focus on getting ahead of stories rather than lagging behind so we can make better and more informed decisions faster.

It is said the third time is a charm so after two attempts at blogging over the past four years here goes.

First, a few thank yous…

Thanks to Weinberger’s loosely joined pieces and Battelle’s thoughts on search, Fred’s musings as AVC to Rosen, Shirky, Rafat, Jarvis, Romenesko, Ito and Om Malik – you are the pioneers who moved the sphere further and faster. Too legit to quit – you have maintained the elusive blogging discipline. You inspire me to force my ideas online.

Second, the emphasis…

Media, internet, content, advertising, digital, customers, technology, business models, broadband, economics, marketing, sharing apps, networks, multimedia, storytelling and, on occasion, film, news, politics and design.

Third, ground rules…

Licensing rules of Creative Commons “The Rules of Engagement”.