Video Content Battle Ready for Prime Time

Yahoo! and Google, for example, have both talked about their search services on mobile phones before, but partnerships with Motorola (MOT Quote) introduce features, such as one-click Internet access, to make using the Internet on phones a much easier process.

Or take Page's much-anticipated announcement on Google Video. While the project itself was announced early last year, Google's pricing plan is enticingly disruptive: When a content provider, say CBS or the National Basketball Association, retails its programming through Google, it not only names its own price, it gets to keep 70% of the revenue. Not only are independent producers going to find that 70% very attractive, but cable companies, say, are going to find it very tough to compete with those prices.

What it means is this: The TV set that receives one-way transmissions of programming according to a network schedule will become as ubiquitous as the transistor radio is today: good to have in a pinch, but gathering dust most of the time. Instead, the apple cart will soon be violently tipped over and many industries -- Internet, wireless providers, broadcasters, cable companies and new entrants -- will scramble to put it together.

In other words, the GYM boys will be competing with Comcast (CMCSA Quote), AT&T (T Quote), Time Warner (TWX Quote), Apple (AAPL Quote), TiVo (TIVO Quote), Verizon , Sprint Nextel , News Corp. (NWS Quote), the other owners of the broadcast networks and maybe even the owners of movie theater chains. All these companies will survive the coming turmoil in some form. But some of them are likely to merge or be bought out by others: There's just not room for them all.