Frank Gruber about a disruptive music service called Amie St.

I have only one question to add. “What part of tghe economy won’t be defined and priced out by the social network?”

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Frank Gruber points to Fred Wilson, who says that MySpace is the “AOL of Blogging.”

Frank, who recently joined AOL in the Product Development area for blogging and RSS, agrees a bit, but I think he neglects to point out the most important point that Fred brings up.

It’s something I’ve been saying about MySpace for a while and it’s very relevant to Tribune (where Frank and I met) and other newspaper and media sites trying to embrace social networking.

The point is, that if MySpace tries to create a walled-garden like AOL did, at some point their users will awaken and the MySpace service will either begin a slow decline, or they will recognize it and open up, like AOL did recently.

And so far, it’s looking like AOL did the right thing.

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Frank Gruber points out the impending “move to the edge” for Real Estate listings.

Since classified advertising (especially real estate and jobs) represents the overwhelming bulk of Newspaper’s online revenue, you’ve got to think the picture will only get worse for them in the coming years.

I ask, “How can you simultaneously protect your cash cow, and also innovate sufficiently to become a player in the new marketplace?”

As others have asked, “Are you willing to put yourself out of business before someone else does?”

Are you even recognizing this question yet?

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Frank Gruber (Somewhat Frank) is off to AOL.

That’s great news for Frank and great news for AOL. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the great new products coming from that company with Frank’s help.

By the way, AOL is making news for opening up recently, but I don’t think they ever got enough credit for releasing the kick-ass AOLServer to the open-source community way back in 1999.

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