It seems like over the past few days, the entire technosphere has gotten them worked up into a righteous frothy debate over the OpenSocial API, wringing their hands with what it will mean to Facebook, Google, and all parts in between — ignoring, perhaps, one of the larger, and certainly much more meaningful to the average Facebook-ian (and indeed, average non-techie person), tech stories that is directly related to new media.

Yes, I am referring to the impending strike by The Writers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America that will likely happen in a short 48 hours.

What? Who cares?

Well, anyone who watches late night television for one (anyone?), including techie favourites The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but also late night perennials such as David Letterman and Jay Leno.

These shows are going to go into re-runs with the strike, as they require fresh material daily, and require the heavy lifting to be done by said writers who are part of said union.

So wait — what does this have to do with Facebook?

Nothing.

But what it *does* have to do with things is how people who write for hollywood get paid for their work as it gets distributed through different distribution — “new media” — networks, including and not limited to things like iTunes, but also other nascent ventures, such as, for example Hulu; also, that practically obsolescent form of digital media, the DVD.

While I also scoffed at the notion at first — running a snide “zero divided by anything is still zero, chumps” through my mind — I did do a little bit of researching and through an article at the International Herald Tribune, there are a few facts that are worth considering, in particular ” Consumers are expected to spend $16.4 billion (€11.3 billion) on DVDs this year, according to Adams Media Research … By contrast, studios could generate about $158 million (€109 million) from selling movies online and about $194 million (€134 million) from selling TV shows over the Web.”

Now, I don’t think that anyone *really* knows the nuts and bolts of how “new media” distribution dollars are going to work out; and I think any new media watcher has seen exactly how long its taken for the larger media companies to get their online acts together (comically so, I might add).

But the various writers unions have a point: the online pie, as fetal, experimental, and primordial as it is now, is *not* worth zero dollars, and in fact, will likely grow to rival physical digital mediums at some point in the future.

And I’ll take their side on this one — its a fight worth fighting for now, because as slow as many things have gone in the recent past, no one really knows how fast things will change in the future. And if they sit on their hands until the next set of negotiations — which will likely be years from now — its possible that the online market will have exploded, while these writers are still paid according to 20th century standards.

While we’re all still enthralled by the latest Facebook / Google standoff, there’s one new media story right under our noses that will affect many non-techies — and will surely be noticed by the media — in the upcoming days. I wonder how many tech bloggers will actually take notice then.