Well, rampant speculation about all things Google seems to be on the rise these days, what with Google getting into cell phones and now another rumour that its getting into TV courtesy of the Guardian.  Turns out Simon Fuller is in talks with Google about revolutionizing life as we — *sorry, I mean, television as we know it.

Although the Guardian piece goes on for another few hundred words about what Mr. Fuller has done in the past (Spice Girls, American Idol, X-Factor — all populist reality dreck that has made hundreds of millions of dollars), there’s really no more substance to the rumour: Google + Guy-behind-American-Idol == Game-Changing-Event-For-Television-As-We-Know-It.

While I could speculate about what all this means, I think its real importance is its timing.

I’ve yakked about it before and I think its something that’s worth remembering: the Hollywood Writer’s strike, if it its prolonged, could have some interesting and dramatic (lame pun intended) effects on what comes up as new media alternatives — and more importantly, how legitimate these alternatives become as the strike carries on, and the stock pile of scripts dries up, and key demo’s look to other media for entertainment (and it looks like I’m not the only one).

Or rather, more so, really, as males 19-25 are already spending a great deal of time on the ‘net, playing console games, and otherwise not-watching mainstream entertainment.

There’s an interesting article in my local paper, the Toronto Star, about how some enterprising individuals have already striking while the iron’s hot.  quarterlife.com, for example, is a new web based television “series” behind the guys who wrote thirtysomething and my-so-called life.

There are a few other web based shows that its joining on MySpace, such “Clark and Michael, Pale Force, Coastal Dreams, Mr. Robinson’s Driving School and Roommates.”

The writer makes the point that the quality of these shows (even quarterlife, in spite of its impressive writing pedigree), is questionable.

I think that the quality, is actually immaterial.  Just like it doesn’t really matter how “good” American Idol or the Spice Girls are.

What many of these ventures are trying to do is create something that’s watchable and good *enough*.  And all it will take is just *one* of them to get big — Lonelygirl15 big — for it to puncture the public’s consciousness and run away with the whole thing.  And once *that* happens, *because* of the strike, it will really legitimize _serialized_ for-web-entertainment as something that “ordinary” people do.