Citizen journalism is when a person not in the news profession sees news happen and reports it. What the IBS employee did was like an employee at a newspaper's printing press calling up the competition before starting the next morning's run. The Wikipedia page update was a leak, and when caught, leakers get fired. (Except when they live in California and are smart enough to set up anonymous email accounts.)

While YouTube has hosted videos over ten minutes in the past, notably including feature film Four Eyed Monsters, in-house Google videos and Charles Trippy's longest YouTube video ever stunt, and early content partners have had the freedom to push the envelope from time to time. But now it's official, and it's certainly in the hopes of garnering better content, running more ads and pumping up "engagement" metrics like average time on site.

Scarcity. Viewers can access NBC for free from their TVs, NBC.com, Hulu.com, and, oddly enough, from their iPhones. Other than an ongoing trial in Wisconsin, HBO shows aren't available on the Web and viewers even have to pay to see them on their televisions. And isn't the difference between NBC's Crime Scene and HBO's The Wire worth paying extra for?

We think some folks in the industry were expressing hopes for how the entire industry, not just Microsoft, would come to look at content distribution, and some speculation has ensued.

Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn did tell Saul Hansell, who wrote the original New York Times article, that the companies had agreed to research filtering technology. Meanwhile, while Zune users will have to pay for downloads of 30 Rock and The Office, iPhone users can watch those shows for free. In other words, still no good reason to buy a Zune. (Illustration by Guy K)

There's little chance that being posted to Hulu will cut into DirecTV signups and viewers, but more importantly, it means that online video consumers will be able to download the new episodes from file-sharing sites months before they're available from Hulu. The peacock would be smart to post them to Hulu as they air on the satellite net and earn a little ad revenue, or at least seed BitTorrent networks with ad-laden files. (Photo by AP/Paul Drinkwater)

These three are more career-driven and have more to say than their L.A. counterparts, which should only lead to more drama. Even when they're not hitting Waverly Inn for dinner or flying cross-country for exclusive Silicon Alley [sic] events, this clique is never boring. They get Restylane injections for fun, own pocket-size dogs, and never go anywhere without blogging about it. What's not to love?

• Pick a more accessible topic. Folks who opt to sit home watching television on a Wednesday night, instead of enjoying a recreational pastime like drinking, know what the Internet is. They just don't care about it like the readers of 4chan or Quarterlife's Web viewers do. Prime-time fare needn't be lowbrow, but it should be accessible.
• Make ads that entice. Quarterlife promo campaign, the 14-word version: Walking talking hugging flashes to a website really stupid quip eating more hugging grunt. It's hard to make typing at a keyboard and looking at a screen exciting, but NBC's marketing team didn't even try.
• Leave it on the Web. For the Internet, Quarterlife still counts as a hit. Even cocreator Marshall Herskovitz says, in hindsight, that he didn't think it could survive on network TV. Why didn't NBC just toss it on Hulu, where it belongs? It would have been cheaper, and possibly more profitable.

Truth is, last summer, Zucker not only asked to set pricing, he demanded that Apple share some of its hardware revenues. Jobs said no. Zucker's subsequent public statements suggest the fact that this rebuff actually surprised him. Now we know why. Yesterday, Zucker told the students at Harvard that before its dismissal, NBC shows led the iTunes video market with 35 percent share. In the metaphorical physics of most businesses, that's called leverage. In Cupertino, that's not enough to let you touch Steve's iPhone.

The page design doesn't look like much, but the video looks great. Even without the polished design, this is a clear shot at Hulu, which currently hosts content from News Corp., NBC, and some other partners — but not CBS.

Is it just a coincidence that these episodes go live so soon after the writers' strike ended? That's the great thing about running the classics — the scripts, and the contracts, are already written. CBS runs ads before the show starts, and in mid-episode, likely commanding a healthy CPM. But enough about business: Pull up your office chair and watch Kirk battle some bizarre alien dragon. It'll bring back your childhood. Alas, no embedding allowed — likely because CBS also makes money on the banner ads surrounding the video player..

We've also heard talk of a deal with NBC Universal. And about four other rumored deals that will not happen. AOL, likewise, shows little sign of happening; debt-laden Time Warner wants cash, not stock, for AOL, and it's not clear how tacking AOL onto Yahoo would boost the latter's value higher than the Microsoft offer. Clever of Yahoo's bankers, though: Even talking up rival deals has to keep Microsoft scared.

• AT&T or Comcast buy Yahoo instead AT&T just signed a display-advertising deal with Yahoo. Last year, Yahoo inked a similar one with Comcast that Mark Cuban hailed as the "Deal of the Year." But neither one has the cash for a bidding war with Microsoft. AT&T executives have already said they encouraged Microsoft to make the bid.

• Yahoo sells the Yahoo Media Group to NBC Universal Sources tell us Yahoo is considering selling its media group — news, finance, sports, entertainment, and so on — to NBC Universal. A sale would let Yahoo double down on search and display advertising, essentially "throwing the kitchen sink" into beating Google. Won't happen. Shareholders lack the patience to let Yahoo carry out such a slow-moving recovery strategy. And the media operation gets most of its audience from Yahoo's big portals, like search, mail, and My Yahoo.

• Yahoo sells the Yahoo Media Group to NBC Universal and advertising businesses to FacebookThis is the most ludicrously elaborate scenario. TechCrunch reports former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig — yes, the guy Decker forced out — now of private equity firm Quadrangle Group, is working on a deal. His goal is to sell the Yahoo Media Group to NBC and combine the remaining search and advertising business with Facebook. In other news, Rosensweig thinks the New England Patriots should have traded for David Tyree during halftime last night.

• Apple to buy Yahoo One time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs spoke at a Yahoo event. Another time, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang expressed admiration for Jobs. According to reports, these facts provide conclusive evidence that Apple is considering buying Yahoo. Right. This is as likely as a purple iPod.

• Rupert Murdoch is Jerry Yang's white knight Last summer, rumors circulated that News Corp. wanted to swap MySpace for a piece of Yahoo. This does not mean News Corp. will join in the bidding for Yahoo now. The company already told the New York Times it would not submit a bid. One reason why? With a $60 billion market cap and far less cash than Microsoft, it wouldn't be able to match Microsoft's half-stock, half-cash offer anyway.

Disputing the rumor, a Yahoo executive told Valleywag: "Don't put stock into it. It's not going to happen." This exec says the rumor likely stems from Yahoo executives who fear for their jobs and don't want Microsoft to acquire the company. In a situation where they have little control — "It's up to the board now" — leaking possible alternatives to the press is one way to try and have a say.

Microsoft can't run both because back when NBC and Microsoft formed MSNBC.com, Microsoft agreed that the venture would be the only source of news on Microsoft sites. A Microsoft-owned Yahoo News would violate that agreement. One of the two properties would have to go.

Expect Microsoft to keep Yahoo News and sell MSNBC.com to NBC Universal, which already owns 82 percent of the associated cable channel.

Insiders say NBC is eager to take over, and Microsoft should be happy to sell. MSNBC.com is more successful online than its TV counterpart is on cable, but according to ComScore, Yahoo News is more popular. Besides, Microsoft has specific reason to trust Yahoo News managment. It's run by the man many consider to have once made MSNBC.com what it is: Microsoft veteran Scott Moore, who's said to be missed in Redmond.

Two things. One, fanboys might be drooling over the MacBook Air Steve Jobs announced last week, but studio bosses like those at Zucker's Universal are more excited about movie rentals on the remodeled Apple TV. And two, entrepreneurs seeking quick cash might consider taking on Zucker in a game of Texas Hold 'em.

Winfrey backed out of of the hybrid Internet-cable venture when she quietly sold her stake just prior to NBC Universal's acquisition of the languishing property. "Fifteen years ago, I wrote in my journal that one day I would create a television network, as I always felt my show was just the beginning of what the future could hold," says Winfrey. What happens to a dream deferred? If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. (Photo by George Burns)

Talking up the ad-network business has had an unintended consequence for Arora: Drawing fresh competition from the companies Arora is seeking to displace. NBC Universal has quietly launched its own ad-brokering operation, the NBCU Extended Network, which places ads on NBC Web properties and third-party sites. Just like Glam, in other words, but without the established brands and sales force NBC has on offer.

Glam's Arora blathers on to Folio about exploiting the "mid tail" and operating a "hub and spoke model." To the extent that there's meaning behind those buzzwords, NBC and other established media operations have figured it out. Which leaves Glam, which is seeking to raise $200 million in financing, with little besides Arora's skills as a salesman to justify its valuation.

Sure, some may label it as stealing candy from helpless billion-dollar corporations, but Veoh's evil genius outweighs its spendthrift sloth. By using Hulu's embed code, Veoh avoids pesky licensing fees, bandwidth costs, and negotiations. Instead, it gets to create a programming destination for a TV-starved audience. And NBC and News Corp. may well get the last laugh. While Veoh sells bottom-of-the-barrel banner ads around the embedded video, Hulu sells pricey preroll ads right in the video itself.

That's nothing to sneeze at, but Quarterlife has been touted as the "first television-quality production for the Web," and 100,000 viewers would mean instant cancellation on broadcast TV. TV-level production values plus Internet-size audiences is a recipe for financial disaster.

But the real draw of YouTube isn't that the content is short; it's that it's easy to find and share. YouTube only implemented a 10-minute limit in an attempt to slow the flow of copyrighted content; users got around it by breaking up longer shows into 10-minute chunks. Plenty of people watch full-length shows online; indeed, that's one of the supposed draws of Hulu, NBC and News Corp.'s video joint venture.

The numbers are compelling. The number of people snagging free content off Pirate Bay has doubled to 8 million in the past year. According to SumoTorrent tracker, 50 percent of BitTorrent traffic is devoted to downloading television shows. And the audience viewing TV shows online is 25 percent more engaged with the show their couch-sitting counterparts.

The lesson: Web users can stomach full-length episodes. There's no reason to chop up narratives into bits for the sake of online attention spans. No, the real quandary is finding a big enough of an audience to support broadcast production values. Doing things the old way doesn't work: Eisner, the former Disney CEO, lost buckets of money on his "hit" Prom Queen, claiming it cost him $3,000 for every 90 seconds of footage.