The cost of making something good is directly proportional to the complexity of the tools needed to create it. (The picture is from Freeadvice.com.)

This blog item is quite good. The tools needed to create words are very cheap. Even if the tools were more expensive, as they were when I began writing, my cost to create this text would not go up much. And the likelihood of its being of high quality would be just as high.

If I read this on the radio it would not be as good. The tools needed to create a Podcast require knowledge of radio or music production values. Even if Podcasts were as cheap to make as blog items, the proportion of good ones would be smaller than they are for blog items.

And so we come to the latest moves by Microsoft and Sony to deliver consumer video.

Video is very complex. Good video demands your full attention. Even if video cost as llittle to make as a blog item, the proportion of good ones would be very, very low.

If 10% of blogs are worth reading, and 1% of Podcasts are worth hearing, perhaps 1/10th of 1% of the online video that will soon flood the market will be worth seeing.

What this means, given the flood of bad video we know is coming, is that if you really want to make money here, give me a way to quickly pick through the garbage and find the good stuff.

That's easier said than done because, as with blogs and podcasts we the people are no longer willing to accept your authority to make that choice.

This means you, Mr. Stringer. You, too, Mr. Gates.

And so, now that you know Dana's Law of Content, the game is afoot!