Questioning the Ad-Supported Model— (Seattle Post Intelligencer) At the WSA investment forum, questions about whether there are enough ad dollars to go around to support the array of startups touting an “ad-supported model.” CIQ: We think startups “get” the idea of content better than established companies, even MSN, Yahoo and AOL. YouTube and MySpace are examples. Therefore, we think investing in these companies makes sense only if they can be seen as valuable to the large interactive empires that will ultimately be ad-supported.

YouTube Launches Show — (Red Herring) Ten episodes of Afterworld, an animated sci-fi series about a cell-phone salesman in a post-apocalyptic world, will be broadcast on YouTube. The idea will be to test drive this format and channel, supported by advertising. CIQ: We think advertising must be wrapped and inserted in such a way that works both for the advertiser and the viewer. Pre-roll is a bad idea. That said, we like the perspective of the CEO of Electric Farm, the production company that made Afterworld. He believes that internet viewers will be ok with advetising especially if the content is high quality.

Microsoft Eyes Yahoo –(New York Post) With the Google/DoubleClick merger, observers say Microsoft is on the ropes and in the hunt for something big. CIQ: We believe both these parties, MS and Yahoo, are looking a little tired and dull compared with the agressively innovative Google.