Skirmishes on the web 2.0 Media Battlefield.

Media enterprises large and small are struggling to sort out how the future will look. The overarching question, what role will existing media companies have when the transformation to web 2.0 is complete.

It's far to early to make anything other than wild guesses, but a handful of things happened in the past week that are worth noting and exploring.

First, Viacom after months of negotiating with YouTube, decided to pull their clips off the video sharing site and go their own way. Now lots of folks cried foul, among them Jeff Jarvis who simply proclaimed the decision 'stupid.' I agree with Jeff about lots of things, and painting Viacom as the big media bad guy is easy to do. But in this case, I can see both sides. Certainly YouTube has the bulk of the video traffic on web now, and as the incumbent - they've got a ton of momentum. But Viacom doesn't need YouTube to remain a healthy vibrant business. Their revenue comes from television advertising, and YouTube hasn't yet sorted out its revenue model (though they most surely will). So, until that time - the negotiation between Viacom and YouTube isn't easy - they're both trying to stake a claim on future revenues, without any clear sense of what those revenues may be. So Viacom decided not to participate in the YouTube model - right now. Fair enough. At the same time Viacom is allowing their videos to be linked to and shared, just using their site as the source (hence retaining the traffic). Ok, sure they're not going to get the huge hits that YouTube will deliver, but Viacom isn't retreating from the emerging web 2.0 ecosystem, just trying to figure it out while retaining some control in the short term. Seems fair enough to me.

At the same time, there was a skirmish that's worth noting between a well known New York Restauranteur and the New York Times. Jeffrey Chodorow is the owner of China Grill Mangment - and probably best known for his role as the 'bad guy' in the reality show "The Restaurant". The series featured Rocco DiSpirito as he started his new restaurant Rocco's, and Chodorow as the 'money' who rolled up in a long black limo and got out wearing all black to threaten Rocco. You have to wonder if Chodorow knew he was being cast as the bad guy, but in any case - that was how it ended up on NBC.

So now, flash foward - and Chodorow is open a new resturaunt in NYC - Kobe Club. And the New York Times sends reviewer Frank Bruni around to review the establishment. Bruni didn't like the place, and savaged it in the Times. And Chodorow decided to fire back, with a full page article (ironically also in the Times) claiming that the Times was out to get him, and that his resturaunt had been unfairly treated by Bruni. Read the full page screed for yourself. Without eating there, it's hard to say - - but yikes, Kobe Club got "0" stars. Harsh.

So what does this have to do with web 2.0? Well, Chodorow may have had to give his nemesis the Times 40k for the full page spread, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have access to his own means of self expression. To quote his letter to the times:

"In the interest of fairness, I am introducing my personal blog, which will be a compilation of my food-related experiences and musings and a special section entitled Following Frank and After Adam, in which I will make a follow-up visit to the restaurants they write about for the purpose of reviewing their reviews. My blog will appear at www.chinagrillmgt.com/blog/. My friends in the restaurant business have warned me that there will be further retaliation against me for speaking up. So be it."

Wow. He's going to review the Times resturaunt reviewer. That can't end well. Gawker has a piece on the fued here. And New York Magazine has an interview with him here. I

So, what's REALLY interesting here are the comments on Chodorow's blog:

Read The Comments Here.

They're really interesting. Passionate, pissed off, personal. Probably painful. But boy, there's alot going on in restaurant land that i didn't know about. I wonder if the Times would let such free wheeling public discourse fly on its blogs? Hmmm....

Which brings me to the thing that ties it all together. It's a video about the meaning of web 2.0, that really tells the story of how media, communication, and interaction is changing. It's made byMike Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. Watch it for yourself - and see if you don't think that it actually makes a whole lot of sense.

There are a few things worth noting about this video. First, it is a remarkably effective way to communicate an idea (even if you don't agree with Wesch's evaluation of what is going on). Second, it was posted January 31st, 2007 and has been viewed on YouTube 1,453,342 times. Hmmm... pretty remarkable audience for a video that you can't classify as 'entertainment' by any stretch of the imagination. And finally, how did i find out about this video - so that i could post it on my blog, and share it with you? Well, my 17 year old son Max forwarded me a link at 2:30am. He thought i aught to see it. So, other than the fact that he was watching videos at 2:30 in the morning, i think he's right.

Viacom. New York Times. YouTube. Hmm... maybe Chodorow aught to start a video blog... now that would be a way to redeem himself for his sinister role on The Restaurant, don't you think?