So how did he look? Rail thin, as you can see from this picture (see below or click here for a bunch more shots of the 54-year old chief executive). That shouldn't come as a surprise, given he's recovering from a liver transplant.

Even looking frail, however, his presence pumped up the crowd. "Steve Jobs making an appearance was definitely a pleasant surprise," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Brothers. Another analyst, Brian Marshall of Broadpoint AmTech added, "I was surprised to see Steve. It's great to see that he's doing well."

Here is a chronology of Jobs' health issues:

2004:

August: Jobs announces he underwent successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. He says it was a rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.

2005:

June: Jobs mentions the cancer in a commencement address at Stanford University. "This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades," he says.
Read the whole speech and see the video here.

2008:

June 9: Jobs appears dramatically thinner at an Apple iPhone event, touching off speculation that the cancer has returned. The company said later he was fighting a "common bug" and taking antibiotics. Apple called Jobs' health a "private matter".

July 26: The New York Times journalist Joe Nocera wrote in a column that he had spoken to Jobs about his health but that because the conversation was off record, he could not disclose what was said. "While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than 'a common bug,' they weren't life-threatening and he doesn't have a recurrence of cancer," Nocera wrote.

Sept. 9: At an iPod product launch, Jobs jokes about his health by walking on stage in front of a giant screen that flashed "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" -- a quotation borrowed from Mark Twain.

Oct. 3: A false Internet report that Jobs had suffered a heart attack briefly pushes Apple shares down 2 percent to a 17-month low. Apple quickly denied the report on iReport.com, a citizen journalist site owned by CNN.

Oct. 14: At a Mac product launch event, Jobs jokes again about his health. His blood pressure was 110 over 70 and he said, "And that's all we're going to be talking about Steve's health today."

Dec. 16: Apple said Jobs won't deliver the keynote address at the Macworld trade show in January, reviving concerns about his health. Asked to explain the decision, spokesman Steve Dowling said it would be the last time Apple takes part in Macworld so "it doesn't make sense for us to make a major investment in a trade show we'll no longer be attending."

Dec. 30: Apple shares fall as much as 2 percent after Gizmodo reported that Jobs health was "rapidly declining" and that was the reason why he canceled the Macworld keynote.

2009:

Jan. 5: Jobs says he has been losing weight throughout 2008 and his doctors think a hormone imbalance was "robbing" him of proteins. He says he has begun a "relatively simple and straightforward" treatment for his nutritional problem and that he will continue as CEO during recovery. "I will be the first one to step up and tell our board of directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple's CEO," he says. Apple shares rise 5 percent.

Jan. 14: Jobs announces medical leave until the end of June, saying his health issues are "more complex" than originally thought. He hands day-to-day operations to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook and says he plans to remain involved in major strategic decisions. Apple shares fall 10 percent in after-hours trading. Read his email to employees here.

Jan. 21: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is examining Apple's disclosures about Jobs to ensure investors were not mislead, Bloomberg reports.

June 8: Apple unveils new iPhone 3GS at its annual Worldwide Developer's Conference but Jobs does not make an appearance.

June 20: The Wall Street Journal reports that Jobs had a liver transplant in Memphis, Tennessee about two months ago and he is expected to return to work later in June. Apple declines comment except to say it expects Jobs back at the end of the month.

June 22: Jobs is spotted at the Apple campus in Cupertino, California, underscoring expectations that he is either back at work or will return soon.

June 23: The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute confirms it performed a liver transplant on Jobs and says he is "recovering well and has an excellent prognosis." The hospital does not give more details, saying the confirmation had come with Jobs' permission.

June 29: Jobs returns from medical leave. An Apple spokesman says Jobs will be in the office a few days a week, and work from home the rest of the time.

INTERNET / STARTUPS

If you want the quick answer, I would invest it in Twitter.  I'm sorry that we weren't in it. I don't know where it's going and it would be a fun ride.

-- Tim Draper, managing director of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

I would love to work more with some of these interesting startups like kiva.org that are developing interesting and innovative ways to create micro-lending programs for folks around the world.

I've a couple of friends and I would like to invest in their companies, little start-ups. One of them is called Trazzler and the other is called Fluther. One is an innovative travel startup and the other is a service that helps people get answers to questions they need.

I'm not a real big stock guy. Maybe a little Apple, a little Google -- companies I use every single day so why not invest in them?

-- Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone

It's stuff in our industry. The most vibrant industry is ours. We're complaining but the reality is we're making money. I would literally go after a couple of smaller companies that are up and coming. (Such as) Lala. It's iTunes without having to download the client. It's a really neat job. Check it out. You take music on the go. It's a really nice design.

-- Yahoo Inc  Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh

I have done some angel investing and what I have found in angel investing is it hasn't been because I was excited about the sector, it was because I was excited about the person. So I don't know that I could pick a sector, but if I see the right people, that is where I would put the $1 million.

-- NetSuite Inc Chief Executive Zach Nelson

ENERGY

I would put it in the hands of scientists who are trying to discover the next energy alternative. By giving them more R&D dollars, we fuel opportunities for higher education. We hopefully allow them to buy better supercomputers and that could improve the computer industry's short-term prospects and it could obviously help discover the next generation of energy source that could change humanity altogether.

-- Nvidia Corp Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang

There are many attractive companies in the environmental energy sector. Especially in Japan, technologies are advanced and there are a lot of companies that established business strategies and models from early on. Also, health and safety will be more valued in the future, so healthcare is a very important area.

-- Konica Minolta Holdings Inc Senior Executive Officer Shoei Yamana

MIXED PORTFOLIOS

"Because I'm 60, I would probably put half in corporate bonds, spread them around, get a nice interest rate on them. And I would probably put some into energy because I am a long-term believer that energy costs are going to continue to climb, and I think they've gotten depressed. And then I would put it into consumer electronics stocks and consumer non-durables. I'm a believer that consumers will come back and will spend again. So I would invest in those things.

-- Corning Inc Chief Financial Officer Jim Flaws

The financial sector will come back. I think some smart investment in the financial sector makes sense. Tech will be one of the first industries to emerge from this because that spending is important to the growth and cost agendas of companies.
I'd probably put a third in natural resources probably oil and gas. The fact is it is a diminishing asset. That is probably going to create supply problems that will tend to drive up the value of those problems.

-- Dell President of Large Enterprise Steve Schuckenbrock

I'd invest in a company whose business is not doing well. Stocks of companies that are making a lot of money don't have much room to grow. There are many sectors that are not well performing but won't ever vanish. For example, chipmakers may be struggling, but that's only because of the supply/demand balance. When demand comes back, the business will pick up again.
Also, materials and infrastructure industries are interesting. There are countries like China that still need to improve infrastructure, so I think it would be interesting to invest in those.

-- Capcom Co Ltd CFO Kazuhiko Abe

HEALTHCARE

Personally, I still think health care. I think the pharmaceutical companies have been beaten down a lot...As population ages, everybody needs more medical help. Pharmaceuticals, drugs are a big part of it. Short term, I think the dollar is going to fluctuate. I wouldn't sell dollars for the long term. If I had a million dollars, I would probably move to a very beaten down currency at this point, maybe Australian dollars, and then back into U.S. dollars in a year or two.

-- Sybase Chief Executive John Chen

I think that the area that is worth investing is in the healthcare area. Small start-up companies that are looking to wirelessly enable health. This whole area of letting people monitor their own health and give them feedback and let others have access. I think there is just a huge revolution in healthcare coming with high-tech. When people can give you a pill, and track it and see inside of your body and tell you what's really wrong with you...I think that whole area is about to just mushroom. It defies economic cycles. People get sick or get ill regardless of economic cycles.

-- AT&T Mobility President Ralph de la Vega

MISCELLANEOUS

I like very much these electronic readers. We actually started that several years back, we were ahead of the time, and we found that publishers, textbook publishers, were not very receptive. The area of flexible paper and digital paper and publishing. We're not there yet. But (Amazon's) Kindle is stepping in the right direction. There is a lot of innovation in that space. But it's got to be like a $49.95 product, not a $300 or $400. It's got to be for the masses. It's got to bring educational qualities to kids in the Amazon, 1,000 miles away from civilization.

-- SanDisk Chief Executive Eli Harari

I'd say Apple. You wouldn't be able to find any other company in the world that can do everything from OS to hardware to services like Apple does. It is a company that has a potential to keep offering new services. Apple's ability to develop products is incomparably better than others.

-- Gree Inc CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka

Based on what I saw on CNBC, I think I would put it in Hormel. Since I saw the sales of the Hormel chili and Spam have increased recently because of the economy. It's as good an idea as any.

-- Advanced Micro Devices Inc CEO Dirk Meyer

I'd put it in the bank probably. Definitely not in the automotive industry.

-- Marvell Technology Group CEO Sehat Sutardja

You know, being pretty conservative in nature, it's either invested in TI or sitting in the most conservative way possible. I get more than enough excitement in my daily life than needing excitement with investments on the side on that front.

-- Texas Instruments CEO Rich Templeton

The move is part of Twitter's accelerated plan to start seeking revenue in 2009, despite the economic downturn and cutbacks in advertising spending online. The company recently closed a round of venture capital financing pegged at $35 million by media reports, following two earlier funding rounds totaling $20 million. The recent round valued Twitter at $255 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Stone says:

We think there will be opportunities to provide services to commercial entities that help them get even more value out of Twitter. If these services are valuable to companies, we think they may want to pay for them.

We have lots of time for experimentation with regard to revenue generation, so we'll probably be trying a few different things this year.

Last year, the company turned down a $500 million acquisition offer by Facebook, sources have told Reuters. And some observers think Google might have its eye on Twitter.

Now plenty of people have found fun ways to use Twitter's 140-character text messages, but this one caught our eye: Researchers at New York University have come up with a way to let thirsty plants Twitter for water. The device called Botanicalls is made of soil-moisture sensors connected to a circuit board. It determines whether moisture levels are too low, or too high, and then transmits a wireless signal to Twitter. Tweets can be personalized to suit the owner, or the type of plant, co-creator Kate Hartman told Reuters.

There's always a basic "I'm thirsty, could you please water me" message. But they also accelerate in terms of need, so there's an urgent message: "I'm desperately thirsty, please water me.

Intrigued? Check out Hartman's 'Pothos' plant, which has more than 2,500 followers.

Keep an eye on:

• NBC and its partners are close to naming a new chief executive for the Weather Channel: Bill Bolster, a former chief executive at CNBC (New York Times)
• Over 90 percent of British iPhone users access mobile media, including websites, e-mails, social networks and games, far higher than users of other mobile phones, research showed (Reuters)
• Nintendo has shipped more than 50 million units of its Wii game console since its launch three years ago (Reuters)
• iTunes will roll out its variable pricing scheme for hit singles and selected classics on April 7. Apple previously said songs will be priced at 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29 (Los Angeles Times)

(Screengrab taken March 26, 2009)

But what caught our eye was a new valuation for NBC Universal implied in the writedown. Vivendi said in its results report that it took 1.503 billion euros off the value of its 20 percent stake in NBC Universal. It didn't say what the stake was now worth, so we asked our colleague in Paris to check with the company. A Vivendi spokesman said it wrote the NBC stake to around $6 billion in 2008 accounts. By our math, that would value NBC Universal at about $30 billion.

So is NBCU worth $30 billion? What would the TV network, movie studio and theme park owner fetch on the market if GE/Vivendi ever put it up for sale? We'll leave you to decide, but here's a graph of the financials for some of the biggest U.S. media companies for comparison.

(Note: According to GE, revenue from NBC Universal was $4.4 billion in the December quarter and segment profit was $865 million)

So does all this mean General Electric is under pressure to write down its stake in NBC Universal? After all, Time Warner took a whopping $25 billion charge and News Corp wrote off some $8.4 billion in assets.

GE spokesman Russell Wilkerson told Reuters there was "no need for a writedown." GE had $18.97 billion worth of NBC-related goodwill on its books at the end of 2008, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Vivendi's valuation puts a price tag of $24 billion on GE's 80 percent stake in NBC.

(Photo: The GE building at 30 Rockefeller Center where NBC headquarters is located in New York on 14 Oct 2001/REUTERS)

But there was no official announcement for Wall Street analysts, investors or the press, except for an SEC filing announcing the departure of CFO Blake Jorgensen which didn't mention the re-org at all. A Yahoo spokeswoman said there were no plans for a press release, calling the changes an internal matter. Hmmm.

Well, the moves were interesting enough for various analysts to weigh in. "We expect more significant restructurings and divestitures of various businesses will occur in the future as YHOO focuses on its core businesses. Also, while the timing is uncertain, we still believe a search deal with MSFT is likely," wrote UBS's Benjamin Schachter. He also notes that Yahoo has told him "unequivocally" that Jorgensen's departure had nothing to do with the CFO's comments yesterday on Yahoo being willing to sell search, which helped push Yahoo shares up 7 pct earlier.

If you're still hankering for more details, here's Bartz's email to employees:

Yahoos,

As I've gotten to know Yahoo! over the past several weeks, I've developed a point of view on how our organization should be structured to set us up for success.

Our goal is simple: to consistently deliver awesome consumer and advertiser experiences, everywhere in the world we do business. Delivering great customer experiences is everyone's job at Yahoo! - and each part of our organization will have a clear role in making that happen every day.

The timing of this announcement is important. As soon as decisions were made, I wanted you to know about them -- even if that means we don't have all the details nailed down yet. Yes, there's been a lot of speculation in the media over the past few days ... that's been a little frustrating, but I'm not willing to speak publicly about decisions before they're final. Today, they are -- so I'll lay out our new organizational structure for you now.

I know you guys have reorg fatigue. Hang in there - our intention is to leave this structure in place for two to four years. We'll continue to make adjustments as needed, but we expect this core structure to stay put.

The structure outlined below will enable us to make big improvements in our product quality and operational efficiency. Part of that is simplicity - I'm frankly amazed at how complicated some things are here! We'll have much clearer decision making and accountability. Product and regional teams will share responsibility for revenue targets and expense management, but we'll have one P&L, for which I'm accountable.

We will also be in a better position to really listen to and understand our customers -both consumers and advertisers. I think we've gotten into the habit of focusing internally too much and we sometimes forget who we're here to serve. You'll notice that our management structure puts a renewed focus on the customer, with stronger feedback loops across the company... and they all come through me.

Also, as you know, no organizational structure is a substitute for collaboration, communication and trust. We'll all need to evolve our behavior a bit - as teams and as individuals - to make this structure work the way it's designed.

So here's the overview, with the roles that will report directly to me. As you'll see, some of our leaders are still to be determined. I know you'll want more detail than what's below - you can learn more on Backyard: http://backyard.yahoo.com/ourorg.

Products: We've combined Tech and Product groups under one roof, led by Ari Balogh as EVP Products & CTO. Ari's charter is to deliver global products that enable extraordinary consumer and advertiser experiences. Ari's direct reports now include one leader for each product group - we've taken care of the "two in a box" problem.

One important note: The Connected Life team has been integrated into various parts of the new organization. Our mobile strategy remains a key part of Yahoo!'s focus going forward and all of our product groups will own mobile innovations. After leading Connected Life for four years, Marco Boerries has resigned from the company to spend more time with his family in Europe. We thank Marco for his important contributions at Yahoo!.

Regions: There are now two: North America and International. As I've said before, international growth is critical for Yahoo!, which has become too reliant on its U.S. business over the years.

The regions deliver Yahoo!'s products, programming and services to consumers, partners and advertisers in local markets. They will partner closely with the newly formed Regional Solutions & Products group in Ari's organization to help drive a significant shift in how Yahoo! develops products for different geographies. The goal is to have global platforms on which regional product offerings are based.

The North American region -- comprised of the U.S. and Canada - is led by Hilary Schneider. The leader of our International region, to be hired soon, will be responsible for a cohesive Yahoo! global strategy and seizing our international growth opportunities. Until we determine who'll lead the International region, Rose Tsou (Asia), Rich Riley (Europe) and Keith Nilsson (Emerging Markets) will continue to report to me.

Marketing: Elisa Steele will be joining Yahoo! as our Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), effective March 23. Elisa joins us from NetApp where she was SVP, Corporate Marketing. Previous to NetApp, she held executive positions in marketing at Sun Microsystems. Elisa will oversee our global marketing strategy and provide direction for our marketing function. She'll bring together the various Yahoo! marketing teams that have been spread across the company. Reporting into Elisa will be Brand Marketing, Audience Marketing, Corporate Communications, Insights, Policy & Privacy, Community Affairs and related central teams. I'm delighted to have Elisa joining the team.

Customer Advocacy: As I said, we can do much better in hearing the voice of the customer across Yahoo!, and incorporating what we hear into all of our work day-to-day. We have opened a search for a leader, who will oversee Customer Care and Ad Operations globally with the goal of improving how we support Yahoo!'s users and advertisers. In the interim, these teams will continue to report to Hilary.

Service Engineering & Operations: This new team is responsible for delivering common technology services at scale, including application management and infrastructure. No matter how cool our products are, the customer's experience won't be great unless our applications consistently deliver. Note that we're bringing Service Engineering together as one group because these engineers bring expertise that is best applied horizontally. Leading this organization is David Dibble, who joined Yahoo! in December. David's team also will be accountable for delivering more effective corporate IT systems.

Corporate Functions: Blake Jorgensen will be leaving Yahoo! and I am searching for a new CFO. Blake will remain through a transition with his successor, and I want to thank Blake for all of his great contributions to Yahoo! over the past two years. Mike Callahan will continue to lead our Legal team, and David Windley leads our Human Resources function. Joel Jones joins the team as my Chief of Staff.

So that's the high-level view. These changes are effective immediately, but we've got more work to do in filling out the structure of each group. In the short term, this transition will be challenging for many of our people. My executive staff will be working with their organizations as quickly as possible to create further clarity. For example, we'll need to recast budgets and adjust work areas so we have the right people working side-by-side.

I want to thank all of you who've shared your ideas and views with me since I arrived. Several leaders across Yahoo! came together to design this new structure - I've been very impressed with their dedication to the right outcomes, particularly how they've embraced the need to eliminate the silos that have been a drag on this organization for so long.

I think this organizational structure has the potential to solve many of the issues you've helped me better understand. Of course, new issues will emerge. But I know we'll be aligned and nimble in tackling them together.

This is a tremendous, proud company with a powerful brand, great products and a bright future. Now's the time to get more focused than ever on delighting our users and advertisers. Let's show them how great Yahoo! can be.

Carol

(Photo: Reuters)

Onstage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the pair of old buddies bantered, aimed gentle jibes at each other and got an appreciative audience rolling in their seats.

Hanks -- displaying the same comedic flair he showed in "Big" -- insisted he was here because it was written into his contract for starring in the upcoming, Sony-distributed "Angels and Demons".

The two-time best actor Oscar winner marched in exaggerated fashion around the stage in clear response to a teleprompter, pretended he wished he were anywhere else but in Sin City, then made a raucous exit pleading with Stringer to rescue him from the Samsung and Casio "hellholes".

"Everywhere in this world I turn, I see the name Sony Sony Sony Sony," Hanks read off a teleprompter, grimacing as though the obvious corporate plug galled him inwardly. "I show up on the set and there it is on the camera: Sony." He paused. "Really? I have yet to see that," he deadpanned.

For his part, Stringer -- a former documentary film maker -- took Hanks' antics in stride, accompanied by a stream of near-ceaseless laughter from the crowd. "I took a risk. It failed," the more somber Stringer told the audience. "But we'll still be friends."

Despite the fun and games, CES felt a little forlorn this week. Following Hanks in rapid succession at Stringer's keynote event was R&B star Usher and baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, but that nearly rounded up celebrity sightings at the once-extravagant, glitzy show. Motown icon Stevie Wonder showed up to promote technology development for the blind, while recording star Akon was on hand to promote his newly released album -- on a memory card.

Perhaps unintentionally referencing his inner thoughts, Hanks said at the end of his struggle with the teleprompter: "I should have read this before I came out."

Video courtesy of YouTube:

Check out Sinead Carew's story on how Stevie Wonder is at CES to make the case for tech that's friendly to the blind. As she reports, with the popularity of touch screens, once simple consumer electronics such as televisions and stereos have become difficult for blind people to use as they often require navigation of multiple menus that need to be seen.

If you want to learn sign language, Krown Manufacturing will be rolling out a pocket-sized device that may help. Use a stylus to type a word on the Sign Language Translator's touch screen and it will play a video clip of that word translated into sign language. The device has over 3,500 words in sign language, Krown says. It doesn't do phrases yet, but may some day.

This video is kind of grainy, but hopefully you'll get the idea:

We were rooting for you Steve, but next time, tell your friends not to steal your thunder.

First, it was Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg leaking the news that the U.S. phone company has picked Microsoft as its default mobile search provider. It's a big win for Microsoft, which has been lagging behind Google and Yahoo on the Web, but Ballmer didn't get to be the first to tell the world. Seidenberg stole the spotlight, announcing the deal at a Citi investor conference earlier on Wednesday. We were hoping Microsoft would take back the limelight by giving us more details when it was Ballmer's turn at CES, but alas, all the CEO said was, "I'm also thrilled to announce a new long term partnership with Verizon to offer our live services on all Verizon phones."

Besides the Verizon deal, Ballmer also announced at CES the beta test launch of Windows 7, Halo Wars, a Windows Live deal with Dell, and a bunch of other stuff. But most of it, while good news, didn't seem to wow the crowds at the Palazzo Ballroom in the Venetian hotel.

The funniest moment of the keynote, in our opinion, was when Ballmer joked about the advice Bill Gates gave him for his first-ever keynote. Ballmer flashed a message on the screen from Gates that said "There are always two conventions going on during CES - make sure you go to the right one." The other conference is the adult entertainment expo, of course (if you didn't know).

He then followed with supposed messages from President-elect Barack Obama, disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and others, including this faux gem from Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang:

"Why do you keep ignoring my Facebook requests?"

(Photos: Reuters)

Our question: "If we gave you $50,000, where would you invest?" One rule: They couldn't pick their own company. But then we thought $50,000 was too little for well heeled executives, so we switched it to $50 million. But that seemed excessive. After all, we're talking about personal investments -- so we settled on giving them a cool $1 million.

Here's what they said:

"In a pillow ... You might look at the energy sector, you might see what happens with gold. I've got cousins who work in the banking industry. When I asked them, they told me put it in my pillow. That is your answer."
-- Havas's MPG Chief Operating Officer Steve Lanzano

"I would be in the most conservative mechanisms I could -- treasury bills, whatever, absolutely. The old trite bromide about cash is king? Well, that is true and more true today than ever before."
-- Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig

"I'd put 40 percent of it into exceedingly high-yielding senior debt securities in a diversified array of businesses. I'd put 30 percent of it with a pretty diverse array of fund managers who have a strong track record of navigating choppy times in an array of strategies. And then I'd take the final 30 percent and buy Time Warner stock ... I will tell you why I love Time Warner. OK, so it's trading at 50 percent of book, and these are people who, post AOL, were incredibly aggressive about writing down their book value. So it's trading at 50 percent of essentially tangible books, tangibles you are going to get for a media company. They are not especially exposed to advertising. A lot of their revenues are very sticky. They still own their cable assets. You are getting a free option on the value of whatever happens in the spin-off. They generate, I think, $13 billion in EBITDA right now, if I'm not mistaken. And all their debt obligations are laddered out well into the future so they have no particular financing risk. So if you figure we have three horrible years ahead of us -- and I don't believe we do, but if you do -- they are perfectly fine from a capital point of view for the next few years. And even after all obligations, all repayments, all capex, they still generate loads of free cash flow. Even if you don't think they are particularly well-positioned strategically -- they are currently yielding 2.7 percent, and I see no reason for the dividend to go down."
-- Take Two Interactive Inc Chairman Strauss Zelnick

"If I had a knife, I would probably put it in my mattress. No, seriously, I think if somebody gave you $1 million today, I think my gut tells me that the market would probably be a good place to put it ... But there's a little bit of hesitancy there. Have you reached bottom yet? Who knows. Do you actually have to actually reach bottom before it's a good time to invest? Probably not. But this might be a good time to put money in the market if somebody just hands you $1 million ... I would avoid the financial stocks for now because I'm not sure all the bad news is out. You know, you would think as low as some of those stocks are, that there would be buys, but some of them may not be around at all. So I would stay out of the financial sector. I probably would steer more toward durables and things that people are going to need year in and year out. They can be a bit volatile too, but you know that they are going to be around for years to come. I don't think I would invest in domestic auto stocks today. You know, natural resources and products that are going to continue to be in demand, even some of the medical and drug companies."
-- Regal Entertainment Group CEO Mike Campbell

"Pay off my mortgage would be number one. Yes, absolutely, I would pay my mortgage. And then other than that I would ... because I live in California and my family does it for a living, I think real estate is a great buy right now in California. There's a lot of depressed prices -- business is out there and real estate out there. I like real estate. It will come back."
-- Live Nation CEO Mike Rapino

"It looks to me like there are buys all over the place. I am not an investor or an economist, but just generally speaking, it looks like these companies that we deal with that I know are well managed, companies like Coca-Cola or Disney that are well managed, many of them are just going to be good buys. But I'm not an investor, so what do I know?"
-- NASCAR CEO Brian France

"So 12 years... I took every dime that I had and I put it into tax-free municipal bonds. And then a year ago, but for what I own in Sirius, every dime that I have is either in insured, tax-free municipal bonds or treasuries. So I have been a terrible investor because if you look at the last 12 years, my portfolio has only grown for those 12 years about 3 percent a year. Now if you looked at the stock market during that period of time, I have left an awful lot of money on the table. But if you look, I guess, over the last year, I have done OK compared to where a lot of people were."
-- Sirius XM Radio Inc CEO Mel Karmazin

"I would invest at least 70 percent of it in stocks. I would put a big chunk in Goldman Sachs. I would put some in GE. I would put some in McDonald's. I would put some in new energy, new innovations. I would definitely put a load in Google, and I would put a chunk in Microsoft. So that's split between technology, and I would think about retailers as well. And then I would keep a chunk in cash, 20 percent. And then I'd put 10 percent in governent bonds. But I believe the valuations at the moment, the prices are so disconnected from values of some great companies with tremendous equities that there's tremendous value for the long term."
-- Interpublic's Mediabrands CEO Nick Brien

Would you put your million in the piggy bank?

(Photo: Reuters)

In the report "The Nouveau Broke - Hitchhiker's Guide to a Free LCD TV," analyst Jeff Evenson says IP video will eventually account for at least 80 percent of all video viewed globally as college students, recent graduates, and young adults -- equipped with computers and broadband Internet -- find cable less necessary.

The economic crisis could accelerate Web video adoption, he writes:

Some consumers may decide to reduce expenses by canceling video subscriptions (e.g., cable) and viewing content over the Internet ... we conclude that making the switch could easily pay for a "nice" LCD TV in under a year if consumers utilize advertising-supported content and 3 years with reasonable use of "for fee" downloads.

Using the simplest option of buying a 32" HD LCD TV using only free IP Video content, the payback period is 6 months and the consumer would save $1,300 over a three year period

With many top-rated network TV shows now available for free online, plus the likes of Netflix, Evenson says the cost of buying an LCD TV, a box to connect it to your computer, and content, is now less than the cost of basic cable packages.

As for where you can find your favorite shows online? Bernstein provides this table:

Keep an eye on

• Sumner Redstone recently proposed to sell National Amusements' 1,500-screen theater chain to help pay off debt, but it may not be enough to placate his bankers because there's no agreement on what the theaters are worth (New York Times)
• Blockbuster said it will roll out a new digital media player that brings fewer, but more recent titles from the Internet to consumers' televisions than a six-month old offering from rival Netflix (Reuters)
• Warner Music Group's quarterly earnings beat Wall Street estimates but the company said results in early fiscal 2009 may look worse than later in the year due to its music release schedule and the global economy (Reuters)
• New York's Tribeca Film Festival, founded by actor Robert De Niro after the Sept 11 attacks, plans to stage a new festival in Qatar next year (Reuters)

(Photo: A worker cleans parts of the Samsung exhibition stand at the International Funkaustellung consumer electronics fair in Berlin, 27 August 2008. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch)