Edgeio has one of those blogs posts that forces you to take some time to digest it. It's a post based on the idea the gap between the giant portals (Yahoo, AOL, et al) and the rest of the world will shrink/has been shrinking - and we're entering an era of de-portalization (a term coined by Fred Wilson). For bloggers and blog networks, it's a thought-provoking thesis because it suggests that people will consume information in different ways and go to different places to do it. The question is if it's not the portals where people are going to get what they want, then will a new mass market vehicle emerge to supplant them, or will the audience disintegrate much like the TV universe has splintered in 500+ channels? For more, check out Scott Karp (who's back in the blogging saddle after being strangely quiet for awhile) and Mathew Ingram.

I was talking to a friend last night at a Christmas party about how he had been approached by a start-up doing high-definition television but turned them down because he couldn't buy into their business prospects. In today's New York Times, there a short piece on why HD hasn't seen anywhere near the kind of pick up as large-screen TVs that have become all the rage as prices tumble. For all its benefits, HD continues to be a difficult sales proposition. For one, it is seen as a premium service by consumers, who still don't grasp the reason to have it other than being able to see a blade of grass in glorious detail while watching football or golf. That hardly seems worth the $10 or $15 that ARPU-hungry cablecos are trying squeeze from consumers. If the HD industry isn't careful, it may see itself in the same boat as the Bluetooth folks, who were crowing a few years but have disappeared. I'm not suggesting HD isn't cool technology or that Mark Cuban's HD dreams are misplaced, it's just doesn't seen cool enough right now.

Technorati Tags: HD, TV