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The media world is changing fast. The latest anecdotal evidence of that: TV star Keith Olbermann left his post at MSNBC this weekend with zero explanation, yet he hasn't lost his access to the public's ear. Olbermann just Tweeted to his 200,000 fans on Twitter.

Specifically, he Tweeted that he's going to Tweet. At 8 PM EST tonight. Presumably about why he left his show so abruptly. Was it because of the Comcast/NBC merger the day before? Was it not that at all, but rather longer-running tensions between the star and management? We'll be able to hear it directly from the horse's mouth in just over 5 hours. In 140 character chunks.

The Federal Trade Commission has approved the controversial sale of a majority share of NBC Universal by General Electric to Comcast, leaving only Justice Department approval for a deal that could define the changing landscape of national power. (Update, it's all approved now, by the Justice Dept. as well.) Critics used to call into question the relationship between NBC, a leading provider of news and analysis regarding current events, and its owners General Electric, a leading provider of big weapons that made those current events go boom.

Now we live in a different world, a post-Cold War information age. Power used to hinge in large part over who had the biggest bomb stockpile. In the future it may be a question of whose voice and content gets delivered through the tubes. If this deal goes through, the many tubes that belong to Comcast will have a vested interest in getting NBC content to customers fast. Other content, not as much. Into that breach may come legislation. The openness of the Web will be hotly debated.

Though Mountain View-based startup Appcelerator has been working together for roughly 3 years, it wasn't until this past March when the venture-backed company launched Titanium to the general public. Appcelerator's flagship product, Titanium offers a platform on which Web developers can build native mobile applications that are easily portable from one platform to another. Today Appcelerator announced the passing of several milestones as thousands of apps have been built by over 65,000 developers - including many well-known name-brand clients.

NBC isn't hopping on the iPad bandwagon, according to recent reports. The media giant known for popular shows like "The Office" and "30 Rock" reportedly told Apple it won't be making any of its online shows iPad-compatible anytime soon. And it's not alone. Sources cited by The New York Post's Claire Atkinson say that Time Warner and several other "large media companies" are forgoing what they claim is an expensive reformatting of their video libraries.

But is conversion expense the real reason why some media companies are eschewing the Apple iPad craze? Or is the fact that the ad dollars just aren't there yet to make it worth their while?

Capitol Hill is abuzz as Comcast and NBC Universal defend their merger in an antitrust investigation before the Senate Judiciary Committee. While a number of interest groups are commenting on the potential acquisition, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen's blog post offers some hints at how the merger could affect the environment for web TV startups.

Facebook's getting its own movie, Ashton Kutcher is the social web's unpaid spokesman and now NBC is launching a show dedicated to mobile apps.

What's the world coming to? Call me old fashioned, but where I come from, a geek is a geek and a mainstream actor with an iPhone is still just a mainstream actor with an iPhone. The Oprahtization of technology is at least a bit demeaning, from my point of view. Sure, this trend brings exposure to our heroic exploits, but it's often done through stereotypes about geeks and an air of naïveté about how technology really works. What do you think? Am I being a curmudgeon? Is all this mainstream-tech integration really a good thing?

At an investor conference held earlier this week, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker revealed that they were looking at new ways to help monetize their joint venture, the video-streaming service Hulu.com. The site, a popular web destination featuring movies and TV shows from content partners including Fox, ABC, Disney, and, of course, NBC Universal, reaches anywhere from 9 million to 42 million users per month, depending who you ask. Although the hosted content is currently ad-supported by way of commercials interspersed into the video streams, the company is interested in exploring other revenue options as well, specifically subscription services and pay-per-view programs.

NBC seems to be having a change of heart this week. The network recently wrapped up their streaming of the Olympics using Microsoft's Silverlight technology. However if you tuned in for this week's NFL season opener, NBC was using Adobe's Flash technology instead of Silverlight. Making some do a double take, here's a look at why NBC left Silverlight in a flash (pun intended).