Newsy.com will roll out the week of October 27th. The team is focused on producing excellent content and spreading it throughout the web. Buzz about our site has already begun – we are looking forward to your feedback to help guide us to becoming a successful online video news web site!

The first week in the newsroom went swimmingly – students are testing the technology that will power our ability to provide multiperspective news. Strategic communication students are learning the ropes of interactive PR – they are quick studies! Getting ready for the big announcement on Wednesday!

Quincy Smith comes right out and says it at the Web 2.0 Summit this week. From Eric Savitz blog on Barron’s Online…

Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive, said on a panel at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week that he does not see the Internet as cannibalizing broadcast television. He contends that allowing clips to sit on the Internet actually drives more people to watch shows live or on demand or on their DVRs. His example is a recent YouTube clip of David Letterman interviewing Paris Hilton, which was recently one of the most viewed things on the site. Rather than take it down, he says, the company embraced it as driving more viewership of the show.

We agree whole heartedly and Quincy’s point is essential to the business model of our new start up we begin to raise money for in the next few weeks.

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.

Yahoo! is underrated.

The web is filling up with how to fix Yahoo! articles – some technical, some managerial – most, including myself, believe Yahoo! can do it. It is great that co-founder Jerry Yang has stepped up to the challenge suggesting the next 100 days are critical. Successful turnarounds that I have been part of involved bringing in passionate outside talent as well – they often can implement the tough decisions that will lie ahead for Yahoo!.

Audiences and advertisers will be better served by several firms vying for their attention and business. C’mon Yahoo!, we are rooting for you.

Advertising based on attention, like TV advertising, is losing the game. CNN has a constant barrage of ads for DiTech, eHarmony, Cialis, Head On…what does that say about their audience? Broke, lonely, impotent guys with a headache – yikes! Advertising based on intention, like the online ad networks, is based on the user’s specific interests and presents itself in context with the pages s/he is interacting with. By inviting, rather than interrupting the audience, an advertiser has a much better chance of creating a customer – essential in the monetization of video online. Pre-roll is traditional media interruption/attention methods bolted on to a new, intention-focused media environment – YouTube’s recent integration of related videos into their embedded player is a solid step in a positive direction.

Recently, two news networks and one very large cable system have resorted to the “loud” strategy – thinking that speaking louder will cause people to listen. CNBC and Fox News on-air personalities have begun to speak louder and faster – check it for yoursef, switch back and forth from any of the other major news nets and see. CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Dylan Ratigan and his posse of alpha-shirted males think they are more credible if they give you stock advice with a bombastic approach. Fox News, which has almost completely stopped covering the war in Iraq, now bloviates at a volume and pace that mirrors Bill O’Reilly’s (sorry, I cannot bear to link to Bill) outbursts. Comcast broadcasts their local tv ad insertions at a considerably higher volume than that of the network they are transmitting. And they wonder why customers, empowered with their DVRs, are no longer listening. Interesting interview and insight on the future of TV advertising from Kim Malone of AdSense.

Two big events happened last week, The San Francisco Chronicle announced cutting 25% of their newsroom staff (as well as several managers) and Microsoft announced their $6B (yes, that is a “B”) acquisition of Aquantive.

During the late 80’s/early 90’s while working for a company called, believe or not, “Multimedia, Inc.” (they owned several newspapers, tv stations, cable systems and tv programming), I spent a lot of time doing my best Elmer Gantry impression exclaiming, “The Internet is coming, the Internet is coming” – the newspaper industry, for the most part, sat on their hands.

Microsoft is good at playing catch up, but $6 billion for Aquantive? Google’s pioneering ship has sailed and when you look at a pie chart of Google’s overwhelming search/advertising market share it looks a lot like a Pac Man icon closing it’s mouth and winning the game.

A good piece on building a web site and an audience from Search Engine Land.