In 1995 Mark Cuban created the predecessor of the company that would become Broadcast.com, an aggregator and broadcaster of streaming media on the Web. The company was purchased by Yahoo! in 1999 and its services have since been split amongst a variety of Yahoo! properties.  Today Cuban owns 2929 Entertainment (coproducers of "Good Night and Good Luck"), Landmark Theatres,  HDNet Films and Television, the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and IceRocket.com blog search engine.  He was also an early investor in the successful blog network recently purchased by AOL, Weblogs Inc.

Cuban blogs at BlogMaverick.com.

What do you see as some of the key factors in the web world over the next 2 or 5 years?

Mark:  The biggest factor is the fact that development tools are so cheap.  Anyone who takes the time to learn how to program can create web-enabled products that can become not only profitable, but potentially ubiquitous.

Any advice for non profit groups on how to enter such a landscape wisely if they don't have an in-house software development team?

Mark: I don't know that non profits need to. They probably benefit more by staying off the leading edge and letting new technologies stabilize.

Non profits have so many people coming at them with new ideas, it's better to let someone else be first.

How would you recommend people discern when new web tools and trends
are stable enough for non-early adopters to invest time and energy in?

Mark:  Always focus on your core business. Technology should never be used just because its new. You have to be comfortable knowing that the technology will add more in net proceeds to your mission then it costs in dollars, hassle factor and resources redirected to install and maintain.

The job of a non-profit isn't to be a tech leader, it's to fulfill its mission.  When technology can help, use it. But be absolutely confident it works.

For early adopters in organizations considering utilization of blogs, RSS, blog search or tagging - are there any talking points you'd recommend for building support for such initiatives?

Mark:  Blogs are great for non-profits because they allow realtime updates of the people and places involved. And they are low, low cost.

From an internal standpoint, it should be a no brainer. The head of the foundation and anyone leading a program should be blogging as a communications tool. Unfiltered. It can bring you closer to the people you want involved and make the organization stronger.

What have you gotten out of blogging?

Mark:  A chance to say whatever is on my mind.

What does the future of blog-search look like? Will the negative impact of spam blogs be mitigated?  Are there other issues emerging of big interest in terms of research or PR?

Mark:  Blogsearch really just becomes freshness/new data vs relevance. Do you want to see the latest on a topic, or find information about a topic.

Icerocket.com plans on leading the way. While others have become more about egosearch - looking to see where a blogger profile ranks him or her, who is linking to you and what bloggers think of themselves.  The real growth will come from personal and business applications.

Let's say a non-profit wants to track what people are saying about it.  They dont just want to read what bloggers say. They want to know if a competitor's website has referenced them. They want to know if there are links between it and good guys or bad guys. They want to know if anyone is
referencing how their funds are being used. And they want it as close to real time as possible. Thats the future of tracking information and icerocket.com will be at the forefront.

We think we have reduced splogs [spam blogs] to the point where they are no more than a nuisance from time to time, and we will get progressively better at it.