HitWise took a stab at the Google – YouTube merger rumors.  I think everyone is wondering if this is actually a real deal or just a unsubstantiated rumor. 

Perhaps Google is buying YouTube to kill it – because they could build the same features into Google Video.  It would not be the first time companies are bought more for their strategic value than their financial worth.

Pew put out a new study on Riding the Waves of "Web 2.0"  which I found out about from Micro Persuasion.  Took a look at the study and found it refreshing.

For one thing, there’s no line that separates a Web 1.0 application from a Web 2.0 application and the destinctions that exist depend more in our defination than any specific change in internet technologies.

I don’t recall seeing HitWise charts in other PEW studies that I’ve viewed recently but Riding the Waves of "Web 2.0"  does have a couple of charts from HitWise that show success of sites based on Web 2.0 concepts vs. those based on Web 1.0 concepts.

The Riding the Waves of "Web 2.0"  is only a couple of pages and an easy read, much different than some of the other PEW studies I have read.

Two more things – to tie up tonight’s loose ends – my Interview with Fred Stonehouse just was posted tonight on  www.artNewYorkCity.com is getting linked to a lot and some more news on Google Radio Advertising, which I wrote about this summer.

About Google Radio: Google CEO Eric Schmidt encapsulated the company’s multi-billion dollar non-search advertising diversification strategy in a few broad statements. Below are Schimdt’s remarks to the press, as reported by Forbes.com:

Schmidt said that more than 1,000 people will ultimately work on Google’s efforts in radio advertising, which will someday sell radio ads over a modified version of its current AdWords placement service.

‘We’re trying to get a simplified AdWords interface where the advertiser gets multiple channels,’ Schmidt said. The idea: Let a marketer allocate an ad budget across multiple platforms, either in an automated manner or by targeting times and regions.

The initiative to put ads in newspapers, ongoing since January, now has almost 100 newspapers, Schmidt said.

Google is also quoted as saying it will have an “easy to use tool for advertisers to easily place ads on radio, newspapers, magazines, online video and Web pages.”

There’s actually a lot to Google Radio Advertising – I think it will change Radio Advertising once it comes online – in 5 years the landscape for advertising on the radio will be entirely different than it is today.