Former Fox executive Ross Levinsohn on Web trends, Velocity Investment Group

Two big Web luminaries - Ross Levinsohn, who was Fox Interactive Media President at the time News Corp bought MySpace, and Jonathan Miller, who was AOL CEO when the Internet company bought Advertising.com -- have finally revealed their new venture - Velocity Investmet Group. As Ross tells me in this interview, he and John knew each other for the last 15 years. They realized that they "agree on most things" about the Internet and, in fact, competed for acquisitions while they were both at their respective companies. As luck would have it, they both left their companies within two days of one another and thus began brainstorming for the last five months. Both worked on various ideas, including the idea to raise funds for their own venture. In the end, being advisers to deep-pocketed General Atlantic was the way to go. Velocity will likely go big, eyeing public and private companies that are generating significant cash flow and/or have a platform upon which to build out other Internet properties. But they will also look at smaller companies, opting to mostly buy rather than invest. Given the backgrounds and expertise of both Ross and John, it's not surprising that the types of Web companies that they'll like go after are consumer Internet-related businesses. User-generated content is still very much at the "beginning stages," and virtual worlds beyond Second Life have a lot of promise, says Ross. Additionally, they'll likely seek advertising agencies or companies that help Internet companies monetize their assets. To listen to more of Ross's views, plus his opinion of News Corp's acquisition of Dow Jones, watch the interview.