Learning how the social can compete with commercial online

I had a “Hugh Grant” moment in California this week. By that I mean a Brit doing something embarrassing in Los Angeles. Of course, this was no sexual encounter off Sunset Boulevard. My outré moment came in front of a group of liberal academics and journalists at the Annenberg institute at the University of Southern California. Hollywood and Silicon Valley prove that California is the home of red-blooded media capitalism. But I felt compelled to blurt out that they need more market forces when it comes to new media. The group in question was the assembled participants in the Berkman Media Re: Publica Conference. Let me explain.