Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:

Congratulations!  You've taken the first step; you've decided to buy a new television.  

The problem, as you quickly discovered, is that the world of televisions is a crowded place.  Determining which set is worthy of your hard-earned cash can be a daunting experience. Oh sure, you've done a little research. "Research," of course means that you cornered the first "TV geek" friend you could find and asked him (uh, or her) the ridiculously open-ended question "Which TV should I buy?"  

Your friend, having been suckered by this question before, looked at you with an expression that clearly said, "Would you walk into a random doctor's office and nonchalantly ask 'What surgery should I have?'" and went on to do some skillful hand-waving that ultimately deflected your question. Your friend (no idiot) knows that if he actually answered the question, he'd forever be held responsible for the "quirks" any TV is bound to have.

We here at Engadget feel your pain. We don't feel your pain enough to tell you what to get, but we do feel your pain.  So, to help you out a little, we've compiled a list of "IT" TV's. Below are five of the top "mob-selected" televisions.  In some cases they are the best of the best. In other cases they provide good value.  However, in each case, you won't be alone if you're looking at these sets.  In short, these are five of the top buzz-worthy TVs, and just for fun we've included each set's "IT" girl equivalent.

Every week Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:

In last week's The Clicker we suggested adding advertising to YouTube's streams in an effort to help alleviate what could soon become the crushing burden of their success.

In this, the final installment in the YouTube trilogy, we ask the question "What if YouTube were treated like a broadcast network?" That is to say, what would happen if we used some (very) basic and simplified television economics to look at YouTube's success? The results might just explain why VCs are circling high over video startups.

First, there's a disclaimer: wild assumptions will be used. Whenever possible there will be an explanation, but not always. Take these numbers and suggestions with a grain of salt. They're meant to demonstrate the enormous potential of micro-content. They're not intended to be a legitimate roadmap to success. In short, it would be ridiculous to take them too seriously.

Don't think that it's right to compare an upstart web company to media giants like NBC, CBS, and ABC? Perhaps not, but it's fun and who knows – perhaps YouTube will fare better than you think.

Let's start with the same example we used last week, Judson Laipply's "Evolution of Dance." As of this writing the clip has now been watched over 15 million times. For those keeping track at home, 15 million eyeballs (err... 30 million eyeballs) is enough to best all but one of last week's sitcoms -- the sole survivor being the "Will and Grace" series finale which drew a Nielsen-estimated 18.4 million viewers.

Every week Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:

Recently we talked about the upstart sensation, YouTube. As a social phenomenon and a growing entity, YouTube's rise to glory has been nothing short of meteoric. In just one year YouTube has taken its business from zero to pumping out more than 35 Million streams per day, and it's still growing. That's pretty darn impressive, but, as the immortal Rod Tidwell once said, "Show me the money!"

You see -- there's a fairly developed pattern when it comes to replacing existing media outlets with their internet counterparts. The first step is to see if people will buy what you're selling when the cost is zero. YouTube has clearly been successful in that regard. In fact, their success has even convinced media giant AOL to create their own (nearly) feature-for-feature knock-off (see: http://communityvideo.aol.com/). [Disclaimer: this publication's parent company is owned by AOL.]

However, using venture capital money to subsidize the trafficking of copyrighted material is just the first step. Eventually, the fledgling business will have to hit step two: making money. It's there where the wheat is separated from the chaff. It's there where we find out if a new medium will enjoy long-term success or fizzle away like the pet rock.

Take blogs for instance: While blogs began as simple online personal journals, it didn't take long for enterprising souls to recognize that blogs held much more power than simply sharing your cat's diet with your 12 "readers." Yes, the majority of the blogs out there are still "by the people for the people." Yet, the medium has also spawned quite a few commercial sites (this site included). It's this commercialization that ensures the future of the medium.

But where is YouTube's legitimization? More specifically, where is the path to profitability? Millions of streams per day is quite impressive, but it's also quite expensive. Estimates for YouTube's traffic have been pegged as high as 200TB per day. No, that 'T' was not a typo; that's Terabytes. Bandwidth costs alone most likely approach one million dollars a month. Add on top of that the cost of running a service as massive as YouTube's, and you quickly come to the same conclusion: It's time for YouTube to stop growing and start making money.

Every week Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:

Riddle me this: what do you get when you combine a nifty little piece of Flash software, some backend mojo, an army of cellphone-toting teens, and one "Lazy Sunday" clip? The answer is, of course, the largest online video streaming service on the planet, YouTube.

While YouTube is preparing to celebrate just its first birthday, the upstart media company is already changing the face of the web. Modern surfers won't surf long without running into the seemingly ubiquitous YouTube player. Whether it's being used by the politicos pointing to Stephen Colbert's all-out Blitzkrieg on the President or, on the lighter side, by budding young directors, actors, and athletes eager to show off their Ninja Skillz, Light Saber Skillz, or Soccer Skillz, YouTube is quickly becoming the micro-content provider to beat. YouTube's traffic (well over 30 million streams per day) bests its nearest competitor, Yahoo, by 100 percent. Other giants such as Google and AOL lag even further behind.

The secret to YouTube's big success? Thinking small. While other players spent the bulk of their time and effort courting the media giants and their large video catalogs. YouTube courted, well, you. More specifically, YouTube made it ridiculously easy to upload and post videos shot on cell phones, camcorders, etc. This led to an explosion of both their viewership and their “catalog.” It's this grassroots support that's led to the company's phenomenal growth.

Every week Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:

You could all but see the gears turning in his head as he pondered the statement. "Clearly," he thought to himself, "I've misheard. He can't seriously be saying what I think he's saying."

"Excuse me?" Bill replied assuming that he would hear something different the second time around.

"That's right. Apple wants to build a Media Center PC."

There was a brief pause as Bill closely inspected his colleague. Blue Jeans, check... turtleneck, check... half-soothing / half-arrogant smile, check... This was the real deal; this was Steve Jobs.

"Let me get this straight…" Gates, now a little bit confused, continued, "You want to build a Windows Media Center Edition PC?"

"That's right."

"Apple?"

"Yes. Apple!"

"Let me come at this from a slightly different angle. You're telling me that Apple wants to ship a Media Center PC?"

"That's what I'm telling you."

"You do understand that Media Center is part of the OS?"

"Yes, I understand."

Every week Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:

99% of the time I'm just your average mild-mannered tech-writer. However, every now and again, when the conditions are just right, I stroll over to my bookcase, reach to the top shelf and gently pull the third book from the left, "Celine Dion: The Magic Behind the Singing Horse." This simple action puts into motion a Rube-Goldbergian series of events which eventually reveals the secret passageway to my lead-lined den. It is there where I don my tinfoil hat and assume the role of my alter-ego, Dr. Conspiracy Theorist.

Oh sure, the realist in me understands that the motivations of large entities are, in truth, driven by the confluence of inertia and ignorance, and not instead by some deep-seated hatred of my hopes and wishes. However, it's an empowering (and self-aggrandizing) exercise to assume that large corporations, governments, and even dictators are all out to screw me, the little guy.

Today, I contemplate the ongoing Blu-ray / HD DVD war, and as I sit in this windowless bunker with only the sound of my Remington striking the ink onto the page to keep me company, I ask the question that seems to be so often overlooked: "Why isn't there consensus on the red portion of the specs?"

It's clear why neither the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) nor the DVD Forum (HD DVD) will raise the white flag, capitulate, and end the blue-laser war. In addition to having already invested years of research and development which they hope will lead to lucrative licensing fees, there are also the intangibles that come from working with the beast you know. Dumping your format and adopting that of your competitor is no small chore and despite the fact that we, the media and the consumers, like to pretend that a blue laser is a blue laser – the two formats are quite different.

Having said that, without the extra "Conspiracy Power" of the tinfoil hat, I found little reason why the two governing bodies couldn't come together and peacefully co-exist on something as well-understood as the red laser. With the hat, on the other hand, it came to me – they're trying to kill independent content.

But let's back up for a second.