Technology Watch:  Andrew Seybold wonders if the demise of the Disney MVNO could have been avoided with some better strategic decisions.  I’m not so sure.  They can get the same effect by syndicating their content through the wireless carriers, while avoiding subsidizing the phones and billing customers.  Virgin Mobile’s IPO (VM) notwithstanding, I am happy we have so far avoided the MVNO sector.

Technology Watch:  BitTorrent unveils its new DNA (Delivery Network Accelerator) product and a partnership with online video content syndicator BrightCove.  In many ways this helps legitimize BitTorrent as it moves away from the enabling piracy.  Will the P2P model rise up to challenge the traditional CDN, or will it complement it?

More to learn…

Long term trend watch:  Barry Ritholz at the Big Picture discusses whether the WSJ should make its archives accessable for free.  What really caught my eye was this chart…

Yowza.  It looks like the crossover point (online exceeds print ads) is still pretty far into the future.  Now that 50% of households have broadband penetration the trend should accelerate (online up, print down) but overall top-line growth probably won’t return until well into next decade.  It will be interesting to see how some of these recent newspaper acquistions (excluding the WSJ deal, which is cut from a different strategic cloth) do financially.  My guess is "not well".

Technology Watch:  Rackspace buys Webmail.us.  I am a believer in the opportunity for hosters to sell SaaS services.  Email is a natural upsell for them.  Working at an SMB myself, it seems perfectly logical to outsource email/ Exchange rather than maintain our own server (that seems to be constantly running out of space and operating slowly).  I was also impressed to see that Rackspace is running at north of $80MM per quarter in revenue with 61% organic growth.  Gaudy.

Technology Watch:  Interesting play by Echostar in buying Sling Media, but I don’t think it makes up for the fact that they don’t have a broadband pipe.  They will need to step up big in the 700 MHz auction to remain relevant IMHO.