Scripps (like me) seems to have food on the mind – around 20 days ago, it acquired the Recipezaar site, which contains around 230,000 recipes.  Also, a press release identified the Food Network as one of Scripps’s leading brands, and notes that “FoodNetwork.com is the top-rated content provider on the web in the Food & Cooking category, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.”

But aside from its name, Pickle doesn’t have much to do with edible items.  And although it may not have much to do with users, either – as far as I can tell, the site hasn’t ever been mentioned on WebProNews – that’s probably all right with Scripps.  “With the acquisition of Incando, we now have the back-end tools to engage consumers, viewers, and marketers in a multi-branded, multimedia online universe with compelling, personalized experiences,” stated John Lansing, president of Scripps Networks.

Neither Lansing nor the official press release provided Pickle’s purchase price, however – credit for that goes to Rafat Ali of paidContent.org.  Ali also carried news of the last deal in which Scripps took part, and wrote, “Scripps filed its 10-Q for Q2 today, and it confirmed the Recipezaar acquisition price we mentioned last month: $25 million.”

$109 per recipe sounds kind of expensive, but then again, that’s nothing compared to $4.7 million for one Pickle.

As this was my first visit since the security scare a couple of days ago, which resulted in all user passwords being reset, I had to create a new login password. Easy enough: visit a page on the Second Life website, enter your SL name and the system emails you a link to click on to reset it and create a new one. Took about five minutes in total.

Plus a new build of the SL application you run on your computer has been released which needed installing before logging in. It auto-downloads and installs so, again, simple enough.

Taking a visit to Podcast Island – where I’d set up the original FIR store (it’s currently out of action) – I could see a great deal of entrepreneurial activity going on since I was last here.

For instance, Podcast Pickle now owns the vast majority of developed property on the Island, much of which is available for rental either in whole or as units. The Podtech Network is also building a sizeable presence.

A teleport over to Podshow Island. Again, more signs of entrepreneurial activity in the new buildings going up in the surrounds of Curry Castle. Plenty of places to rent.

There is increasingly more talk on the big-picture aspect of why companies and others are getting involved in Second Life:

[] There’s already one politician said to be a possible US Presidential contender campaigning in Second Life, you can participate in American Cancer Society fund raisers, hang with the American Library Association or participate in substantial daily commerce. There are major corporations launching advertising initiatives in Second Life and consultancies forming to facilitate such activities. Acts of violence in a game that prohibits it are being reported with increasing frequency. This is serious stuff.

Whether Second Life does turn out to be the place for business in a virtual world or not, it’s clearly a place where plenty of people and organizations are investing significant time and energy and, for some, money.

As I’ve said before, don’t ignore Second Life.

Related posts:

• Second Life: Reality not escapism
• Real-world opportunities in Second Life
• How to understand Second Life’s potential

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

Maybe not wrong, but definitely weird and probably concerning to my friends and family.

But I’m not the only one who’s into this user-generated video site; a recent USA Today article says YouTube reported 2.5 billion videos were watched in June of this year alone and more than 65,000 videos were uploaded to YouTube, accounting for more than 60 percent of all videos watched online.

YouTube, developed in February 2005, originally specialized in shorter, homemade, comic-like videos created and uploaded by users. But with its recent NBC partnership and banner ads for Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, YouTube has now entered the marketing mainstream.

Not to mention the search engines, who are paying a little more attention to their own online video platforms. Just last week Yahoo announced it will now store homemade videos on its own site with many features similar to YouTube.

I think the best part of YouTube is its viral marketing abilities. For example, NBC captured an old WB pilot episode all because it demonstrated incredible popularity after it was leaked on YouTube. The pilot, Nobody’s Watching, was cancelled by WB one year ago, but appeared on YouTube with high download numbers. So now NBC is airing six episodes. And let’s not forget NBC’s recent deal to post promo clips from Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

But there is still the issue of profit for this online, user-generated video world. I highly doubt it will ever be a user-subscription-based model, after it has been free for so long.

But questions remain.

Disney only advertised 24 hours. Who will advertise next?

Is the partnership with TV networks a step in the right direction? Or, a sign that YouTube is going too mainstream?

And what happens when it ceases to be cool? Will the loss of the cool factor indicate a loss of profit opportunities, too?

The future of YouTube may be undetermined, but we must remember a pickle phobia is real, it does exist and it’s serious.

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