And who gets to decide? And what if those generating the content ask for it? YouTube Seeks Testimony of Comics Stewart and Colbert

The two hosts of the Viacom hits “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” were listed as numbers three and four out of 32 people called by YouTube to give a deposition in Viacom’s case against it and parent Google Inc , according to a document filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last week.

With some interesting TimesSelect statistics: The Case for Freeing the WSJ Online — pdf

“I think it would be an expensive thing to do in the short-term. In the long-term it may be a wonderful thing to do,” said Murdoch.

The dominant strategy among online publications is to attract as many millions of visitors as possible with free content, then leverage that mass audience to run ad campaigns for big brands. It’s easy to see why newspapers have chosen this route with all the advertising dollars flowing online.

[...] [E]ven for one of the most recognizable daily papers in the world, subscription revenues can’t compare to online advertising revenues. In 2006, Times Select generated $10 million. In the second quarter alone, the company’s total Internet revenues grew 23%, to $80.9 million, a tally that includes ad sales from The Boston Globe’s online edition, About.com, and other sites. By itself, NYTimes.com is expected to pull in an estimated $175 million in revenue this year, according to Lehman Brothers’ (LEH) analyst Douglas Anmuth.

Later: How the New York Times can fight back and win

A chance to find out: Dr. Google and Dr. Microsoft

By combining better Internet search tools, the vast resources of the Web and online personal health records, both companies are betting they can enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care.

“What’s behind this is the mass consumerization of health information,” said Dr. David J. Brailer, the former health information technology coordinator in the Bush administration, who now heads a firm that invests in health ventures.

It is too soon to know whether either Google or Microsoft will make real headway. Health care, experts note, is a field where policy, regulation and entrenched interests tend to slow the pace of change, and technology companies have a history of losing patience.

And for most people, typing an ailment into a Web search engine is very different from entrusting a corporate titan with personal information about their health.

A flag on the NFL’s play — pdf

THE NATIONAL Football League is flexing its prodigious muscles in cyberspace, with a strict new media policy that forbids news organizations from offering on their websites more than 45 seconds per day of audio or video from NFL facilities. Particularly galling to news organizations is that the 45-second restriction applies to footage of press conferences, which would not even occur were there no reporters present to ask questions.

[...] [A]s the NFL seeks to control its image, it has also exposed its own conflict between its business aims and its role as guardian of a national obsession.

[...] It’s not at all clear that league officials see any difference between news coverage and marketing efforts that benefit the league’s bottom line. Beyond imposing a new policy on Internet video, the league has also demanded that news photographers wear vests bearing the logos of official sponsors Canon and Reebok.