When talking about these things and the comments that Barry Diller makes, don't think in terms of a traditional media man altogether. He was one of the first from old media to understand and embrace the Internet. He said this, and has understood it for years:
"I never left ... it's just different kinds of programming," Diller said the Media Summit in New York. "None of us can fool ourselves, everything will be in digital form."
So when we talk, understand that he's a man that knows. Taking that into consideration, he still sees things from the point of view of professional content 
and production. But overall he knows his stuff.
For example, when he said concerning monetizing social networking, that "There is definitely going to [be] advertising. It hasn't yet, to me, been evidenced how vibrant an advertising medium it's going to be." He's completely right on this one.
At this time it's being shaken out. One thing that will happen, but will take time, is that advertising budgets will eventually have more percentages tagged for online marketing than any other medium. Of course the TV and Internet will merge some day soon, so that will blur some of that. But distribution will be via the Internet; that there is no doubt of.
Online marketers need to be content creators, at least those wanting to monetize through advertising. Even now it's been said that there is plenty of advertising dollars for the Internet, but few platforms created to offer a safe home for it to be put on.
There are a number of ways to offer that content, but the bottom line is that content, in its variety of forms, will be the future as far as online advertising dollars go. Make no mistake about that. As Diller says, it's finding out how to make it vibrant and healthy that's the challenge ahead of us.
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