There is so much misunderstanding flying around about the economics of content on the web and the role of Google in the web’s content economy that it’s making my head hurt. So let’s see if we can straighten things out.
Google isn’t stealing content from newspapers and other media companies. It’s stealing their control over distribution, [...]

Jeff Jarvis has post today worth reading, about the emergence of the web as the new newswire and the trend away from traditional newswires like AP:
The old syndication model in the old content economy just won’t work today when all the world needs is one copy of a story up in the cloud with links [...]

Last month, four major newspaper companies announced a joint ad sales venture to “let national advertisers place ads on local Web sites with a single phone call.” When I read that, I realized suddenly why local newspapers are having so much trouble adapting to the web.
There’s no such thing as a local website.

In the networked web era, influentials may not be people with a particularly connected temperament or Rolodex, or people who control and influence monopoly distribution channels (e.g. newspapers), but rather people who influence the network by leveraging the most powerful force on the web — the link. People like bloggers, top Diggers, del.icio.us power users, [...]

To understand why the inclusion of videos on Google News pages — which can be played via YouTube embeds right on the page, without leaving Google News — can be a valuable distribution channel for video content producers, first take a look at this video embedded right here on Publishing 2.0:

Everybody in the video content business is focused — to the point of obsession — with distribution. Viacom is going to distribute through Joost. NBC Universal and News Corp are creating their own distribution channel. CBS is going to distribute through everybody and their dog.
All these content owners are right to be focused on distribution. [...]

Did the NBC Universal/News Corp deal make Google a tad nervous? Via WSJ:
Mr. Chernin said Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt called yesterday and said Google will consider signing on as a distribution partner. A Google spokesman confirmed a call took place, but declined to comment on what was discussed.
After spending $1.65 billion on YouTube, that [...]

Did NBC Universal and News Corp cut a deal to create content for the web? New production capabilities? New armies of web-only content creators? No. This is about creating a platform for aggregating and distributing existing content, which they already have too much of.
You’re looking at the new media business. It’s not longer about creating [...]

Is it possible that the future of the content business is worse than being less profitable and worse even than not scaling anymore — is it possible that content creation will cease to be a business?
I was struck by this quote from a music business manager in the WSJ article about the complete collapse of [...]

Google is learning that the value propositions of content hosting, content distribution, and content discovery are not created equal, and that YouTube’s monopoly on all three may be slipping away. A story in the Washington Post states what has been evident for some time:
In the few months since Google paid $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube, [...]