Tom, being tough on sex offenders is a good thing, even if the motives are not totally pure in themselves.

Anyway, this could wind up as a case study on how Silicon Valley either gets -- or doesn't get -- federal laws (and the Washington scene in general).

To me, the strength of Google is in the Google Grid: SaaS and the like. The entertainment stuff is a nice-to-have, but not a necessary-to-have for Google. After all, Yahoo has tried the entertainment route and where has it got them (relative to Google)?

Eating Microsoft's Office Suite profits is something that will eventually give Google dominance. GooTube: Who really cares? This is a VERY small piece of the Google pie.

To the GooTube jihadists: Get your arms around the big picture. The big picture isn't about GooTube. And don't assume that Google can't do something dramatic, like buy Disney!!

David: Richard wrote this one...and yes, googtube is small potatoes in terms of ggog revenues.

Adam: Thanks (blush) and yes, Todd and team are amazing.

David, my point about sex offenders was that if the industry (MySpace) doesn't clean up its act with regard to sex crimes, they're going to find Congress doing it for them in a Draconian way (they will lose immunity from liability). Cuban's point is that the entertainment industry must be mollified because it will go to Congress and rip Safe Harbor out of DMCA and then where your Internet business model be?

Re: the relative importance of entertainment. You said the strength of Google is the Grid (SaaS, etc). I don't get that. Google's strength is in deploying advertising. Entertainment content on the Net is going to be a Very Big Thing (which is why GOOG spent $1.65b on YouTube.)

Yahoo's inability to deliver on entertainment is hardly proof that Google can't deliver.

Eating Microsoft Office profits is a very long way off. Major ad revenues on entertainment content is here and now and quite substantial (if they can convince Hollywood there is a compromise position.)

Google is an advertising company. What are relative opportunities for placing ads on Google Apps/Docs versus TV shows, movie clips, the Oscars, music stars, etc.

Finally, Google won't buy Disney. It doesn't want to *own* content. It wants to leverage it.

Revolt of YouTubers Not Surprising

Richard, "Draconian" seems a bit strong, but that's really a matter of perception and perspective. Frankly, I'm not sure I wouldn't mind seeing Washington rattle the cages of the elitists in the Valley: Probably a spanking that is way overdo.

Regarding the "Grid," the "Grid" is everything, it's what makes Google truly ubiquitous and pervasive. Advertising is simply one of many ways Google will make money from the Grid. True, it's the primary way, but over time, it may not even be the largest revenue stream. Time will tell.

If it was just about advertising, then I'd say that Google is in a lot of potential trouble; others may find better ways. But the Grid is so much more, a weapon that will be tough for others to defeat.

Content is, indeed, the "here-and-now." But don't discount the long(er)-term idea of Google controlling SME and then enterprise apps via a Grid SaaS platform. And this will eat Microsoft's lunch. The good news (for consumers) is that Microsoft may be forced to play by Google's rules -- and competition is a good thing.

Regarding Disney, maybe you're right. Time will tell. I wouldn't discount Google from owning at least some content in the future, and Disney might be a great match, perhaps the best significant match.

David, GOOG already owns a lot of content. There is YouTube, plus it has a copy of the entire Internet sitting on its servers.
Its Index is also content and very valuable and proprietary.
And it has an enormous amount of metadata content, clickstreams, and behavioural data content, and tremendous amounts of advertising content too. GOOG is a huge content owner.

At the risk of sounding stupid, I guess I don't understand the Google grid. I thought the Grid involved sharing computing power among a large, diverse number of computers, a la SETI@home. But Google's grid is really a data center, no? Using the power of connected inexpensive machines to be sure, and as Scoble pointed out in the post I pointed to, GOOG is kicking MSFT's butt in the datacenter. But is the GOOG Grid something different than the the GOOG datacenter? Educate me.

Tom, point taken that Google owns content. But "content" refers to "consumable content." And what I mean by 'Google doesnt want to own content' is: Google wants to aggregate other people's content (a la News and indeed AdSense). YouTube isn't technically Google's content. It is really owned by the people who created it and "licensed" to YT/GOOG.

What I mean is GOOG doesn't want to "tell stories" (as Eisner does), doesn't want to fund young artists, doesn't want to buy production companies. I do think the publishers and Viacom have a point in that they don't feel like being aggregated by Google. But old media will continue to be aggregated by GOOG until they come up with potent distribution schemes of their own.

Richard, at the risk of sounding stupid, I'm not sure I can explain it. Okay, just kidding.

The power of the "Grid" is that it controls everything, kind of like HAL or Colossus (although we all hope in a benign way). Underneath the "Grid" are the databases, IR systems, content management systems, even down to the OS and compilers (for that matter).

The "Grid" is the ultimate, consummate distributed system. The trick is to get everyone on the "Grid," and I believe that Google is having a lot of success doing this. And once they're on, they'll be hooked as Google continues to deliver more and better services -- and at price points that will be difficult for others to match.

Although I agree with the statement that "content is king," the "Grid" provides the infrastructure for Google to deliver. And that's the Google advantage.