There's lots of talk about online advertising, plenty of growth, and lots of repercussions among the media landscape as more readers and advertisers move to the Web. There's also many advertisers still unclear about what to do and where to go online - something Kevin Restivo and I discuss during this week's Talking Tech podcast. We also spend some time talking about the strategic dilemma facing Cinram, which is scrambling to figure out if there is life in the digital medium beyond the making of CDs and DVDs. The last time, Cinram really ventured online it entered into an agreement with MP3.com to make custom-made CDs in 2000 - a deal that failed to gain any kind of traction. Finally, Kevin and I touch on NTP's lawsuit against Palm. As many people know, NTP sued Research in Motion for patent infringement, and walked away with a settlement of more than $600-million. The question is whether NTP is really that much different than Qualcomm, which generates huge amounts of fees from companies using its technology. (Thanks again to David Jones, Ed Lee and Neil Johnson for their production work, as well as Amber MacArthur for doing the show's voice intro.)

I've always been puzzled by IP-TV. Despite all the talk - and Microsoft's huge investment to get into the market - the prospects for IP-TV seem, at best, modest. It's not like consumers are clamouring for another way to receive television programming. And it's like the cablecos and satellite-TV service providers are dropping the ball in terms of new services. According to a recent In-Stat report, the cable industry is enjoy strong growth around the world as consumers demand for TV programming, as well as voice and data services. In-Stat found that of the 1.2 billion TV households around the world, 355 million are cable customers. This includes 106 million in China and 69 million in the U.S. The question is how the carriers are going to establish a foothold with IP-TV other than using lower prices than cablecos. Maybe the triple or quadruple plays will help them build some market share but attacking the cableco franchise seems like a Don Quixote-like exercise. In Canada, it will be interesting to see how well Bell Canada and Telus do with their IP-TV offers. Bell is still in "testing" while Telus has launched an IP-TV service on a selective basis in Calgary and Edmonton. The challenge is differentiation so there's a compelling reason for consumers to go with IP-TV rather than cable. Other than price, it may come down to services such as programming-on-demand in which every television show is stored on a server and available if and when the consumer wants it on a pay-as-you-go or subscription basis.