Media convergence getting into higher gear

A few pieces of news indicate how convergence is taking shape between the video and film content providers and the Web. UPN is running a four-day exclusive screening of the first episode of its new show "Everybody Hates Chris" on Google Video. How long before it runs simultaneously on the Web (IPTV) and on traditional broadcast outlets...and then only as a stream over the Net? The New York Times has a story about Yahoo's efforts to become more of a content provider, and Yahoo Finance is hiring a posse of financial writers. In this context the AOL/Time Warner mash up has a brighter future than most recently thought. In this converging media funnel, the Web aggregators (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, IAC, AOL, etc.) will increasingly get in bed with the mega (Disney, Viacom, GE, NewsCorp, TimeWarner) and minor moving picture content providers...and eventually convergence in the form of massive mergers will take place among the content aggregators and providers. The long tail will be very long, but concentrated at the head of the tail the few and mighty could dominate even more as the next phase of convergence in the Internet era occurs. Follow the money...