Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company (DIS), was the kickoff interview onstage at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference, which is taking place over the next three days in Pasadena, Calif.

The event is packed full of Web and media luminaries.

So, BoomTown will be sitting in the front row and liveblogging some of the sessions here, including this one, titled, “Digital Kingdom: New Business Models for a Media Giant.”

Translation: When you Twitter upon a star, makes a–big–difference what you earn.

Which, right now, is not a whole lot, as Iger and others in the media business know all too well.

But let’s set the scene: Iger looks like a very typical old-media mogul you might order from an online catalog–handsome, suave and sophisticated, a perfect mix of Hollywood and New York.

Thank goodness, then, that he never seems to have acquired that other irksome characteristic of some of his peers–a full-bored panic over the Internet.

In fact, Iger–whom I also interviewed onstage at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006–has been unusually fast-forward among many of the big media companies in facing the digital music and dancing.

Fortune writer Richard Siklos asked him about a mishmash of subjects, from subscription services to authentication to cable providers, all of which center around a basic question:

How the heck is Disney going to be paid for its wares–because someday those agelessly lucrative “kids” from “High School Musical” are not going to agree to yet another reunion?

“This is the beginning of the beginning,” said Iger, who noted that it would be folly to guess what’s coming next in the digital arena.

A most excellent point that he made several times, adding that it was important for companies like Disney to keep trying out all sorts of things digitally, until they got it right.

“This notion of protecting the present is something that I talk a lot about [with employees],” said Iger, who wants them not to do that so much.

He noted that running a modern media company meant you had to have “one hand in the present and one hand in the future.”

Iger forgot about the hand that you might need to protect yourself from partners of the present–like big-box retailers, television affiliates, cable networks–who are going to come at you with a cudgel for giving the stuff you sell them away free on, say, Hulu.

Hulu, of course, is the popular, tiny-money-making premium online video service, which is a joint partnership of News Corp. (NWS), GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and now Disney.

“We believe in Hulu,” said Iger, who thinks its business model–currently just online advertising–might evolve over time.

But, he added, he was “somewhat skeptical” of any one answer to what is ahead.

As in: Iger just does not know, which is probably the best thing a media mogul can say right now.

Except for one thing he said is always mindful of–to follow, “where the consumer is going.”

Consumers are going online, of course, which is certainly going to require all-hands-on-deck at Disney in the years ahead.

[Update: It seems Disney was keeping its hand in the present for today, as it apparently had YouTube take down a trailer for its new "Alice in Wonderland" movie, which was set to debut at Comic-Con International in San Diego tomorrow.]

Yesterday, shares of Netflix got their semiregular rocket boost–with its stock up more than five percent to close at just over $42–from rumors that Amazon was interested in buying Netflix.

Oh, it’s a seemingly dreamy match–the top online retailer snapping up the upstart U.S. mail-order DVD movie and television show service.

But the speculation completely ignored the giant price needed to buy the Silicon Valley-based Netflix (NFLX)–well above its current $2.43 billion market cap, to be sure–which would be a big chunk of Amazon’s $35 billion valuation.

And it also leaves out the nearly impossible tax problem Amazon (AMZN) would acquire if it ever bought Netflix, given that Netflix has many U.S. distribution locations for its subscription rental business. Amazon does not like paying state taxes and avoids them carefully.

Instead, those interested in seeing the independent company in the embrace of a larger one might want to consider a more suitable and very interested candidate: Microsoft.

Neither Microsoft (MSFT) nor Netflix will comment about such a hookup.

But several sources close to Microsoft told BoomTown that that the partnership between Netflix and Xbox Live to allow users to watch movies and TV episodes on the Xbox 360 device–struck exactly one year ago today–is going like gangbusters, with one saying it was “en fuego.”

Very loosely translated: On fire.

So much so, several sources said, that Robbie Bach–who is president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, which includes the Xbox business–has been meeting with Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings (pictured) in recent weeks about what else the pair can do together to expand its current partnership.

The deal already in place between them is a hit, according to sources at both companies.

It gave Netflix access to 12 million Xbox members and handed Microsoft what has turned out to be a very popular application and an unusually successful joint effort.

While an acquisition would be a much bigger move, some at the software giant think it would necessarily be such a bad one for Microsoft, which has long been seeking to forge better ties in the entertainment arena.

Many of Microsoft’s major Hollywood forays over the years have been duds. So, stronger ties with Netflix–even a more robust partnership, at the very least–would give it a more definitive video strategy most think it lacks.

Its archrival, Google (GOOG), has been trying–with similarly lackluster impact–to accomplish the same results via its pricey and money-losing YouTube unit.

But Netflix–which has an office in Beverly Hills, as well as Los Gatos, Calif.–has much better relationships with the industry there, mostly because it has become such a big buyer of DVDs as it has grown its business (see charts below of subscriber and revenue growth; click on them to make them larger).

In addition, it has added more subscribers than ever in the last year and is solidly profitable, mostly due to sending consumers all those DVDs in little red envelopes.

And while a lot of execs at Hollywood studios that Netflix does business with have been wary–and told me so in no uncertain terms on my recent visit to Los Angeles–about its entry into the digital video delivery business, they have also been thrilled with the checks that Netflix has been writing them since it was founded more than a decade ago.

But, it is that main DVD business that Hastings, in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal recently, has said is “doomed.”

Noted the article:

“As soon as four years from now, [Hastings] predicts, the business that generates most of Netflix’s revenue today will begin to decline, as DVDs delivered by mail steadily lose ground to movies sent straight over the Internet. So Mr. Hastings, who co-founded the company, is quickly trying to shift Netflix’s business–seeking to make more videos available online and cutting deals with electronics makers so consumers can play those movies on television sets.”

With Internet video still in its infancy–and barely in gestation in terms of any viable business model–Netflix might indeed need help, especially since Hollywood has been slow to give it rights to more movies for online distribution.

That will be increasingly troublesome, given that digital delivery is the way consumers are headed. According to the Journal story, over 20 percent of Netflix members now use the streaming service.

But it only has about 12,000 titles–mostly older films–licensed on its online service, compared to 100,000 DVD rental titles.

That’s because, for now, much more powerful pay channels usually win out over Netflix in these online video distribution wars, which also include Amazon and Apple (AAPL), along with many others.

Thus, even with a strong and unusually long-term executive bench, the close-knit Netflix will still be facing a major battle in moving in a direction it must head in sooner than later

Such an epic journey could be easier for Netflix with a powerful ally like Microsoft.

One more interesting link would make such a relationship even smoother: Hastings is also on the board of Microsoft, having joined in 2007.

So, the savvy and innovative entrepreneur–well-known for his close-to-the-vest dealmaking and eager to not miss a key turn for his company–might very well decide to keep friends very close.

That debate has been all over the Web since News Corp. won its battle to buy Dow Jones (owner of this site) last week, including posts by Jeff Jarvis and Fred Wilson in favor of the move.

But former MarketWatch head Larry Kramer disagreed, noting that his old site should be the free product, while the Journal’s content should remain premium.

Sorry, Larry, but I vote–and I know Murdoch (pictured here from a magazine spread with an Apple computer at the ready, apparently) definitely does not preside over a democracy–yes, ma’am, um, sir, for a free WSJ.com.

(And just to show this is not a kiss-up to the new boss, but a cogent analysis of the landscape for the Journal moving forward under Murdoch, here is a video interview posted below that I did in Los Angeles with Beet.TV’s Andy Plesser back in May about the possible News Corp. takeover and how I felt about the situation. Not so happy and also really wrong about Rupe’s chances of winning Dow Jones, as you will see.)

Also, I have posted many times on this subject, such as this recent piece.

There are, of course, valid arguments to be made to keep the Journal’s much-admired online subscription model, combined with freeing up more content offerings over time.

Interestingly, in an interview with paidContent.org last week, WSJ publisher Gordon Crovitz said: “So far, our analysis says the way to maximize revenues and earnings is to have a mixed model.”

While I hate to differ with Crovitz, who helped us immeasurably in getting this site up and running as a free one, I think an open and ad-supported model is the only way to go now, especially under a larger and more powerful (and, most important, global) company like News Corp. that can really vault the site to higher prominence and higher traffic.

And given that the Journal’s online site garners estimated revenues of about $65 million from its paid efforts, which is admirable, it is chump change for News Corp. to try turbocharging the site as a free one, an experiment that will surely pay back the short-term cost.

An interesting analysis released last week by Lehman Brothers’ Doug Anmuth looks at the trade-off–more page views are likely to be gained by going free, although with possibly lowered ad revenues in the short term and lower ad revenues per page in general.

That sounds about right, as it is likely in time and with the marketing muscle of News Corp. that WSJ.com could go from its current 2.6 million unique visitors globally a month to three times that or more.

More importantly, while it has almost hit an impressive 1 million paid subscribers, an audience that has been growing, the online paid site is only going to gain so many more subscribers before that paid-wall people hit finally takes a hit itself.

Most importantly, while a good product, the paid version simply creates a situation in which the Journal is not as relevant as it could and should be. I know Journal execs have heard this before and would argue the paper is influential with a much more elite audience willing to pay the annual fee for access.

But, to my mind, too much of that is a lot of expense-account money talking. That same audience would remain and expand in an unpaid scenario and also add many more who get less excellent, but still adequate, coverage from a plethora of finance sites now.

(By the way, the rumors that the New York Times will end its TimesSelect, which gates the best stuff behind a paid wall, are back again, courtesy of the Murdoch-owned New York Post. Who knows what the Times will do, but it should dump the dumb system, which only irks readers and, I assume, its imprisoned star writers.)

And for the hyper-elite crowd, there are still all kinds of premium content that can be charged for to accompany the free site. In addition, business networking tools and other features could be ladled on (why in the world is Facebook, and not The Wall Street Journal, the de facto social-networking site right now for Silicon Valley, for example) to create a very loyal and high-level audience.

I could go on, but why not let Murdoch, who floated one of the more intriguing ideas in a very interesting interview he did with Time in late June before he won his quest to nab Dow Jones:

“What if, at the Journal, we spent $100 million a year hiring all the best business journalists in the world? Say 200 of them. And spent some money on establishing the brand but went global–a great, great newspaper with big, iconic names, outstanding writers, reporters, experts. And then you make it free, online only. No printing plants, no paper, no trucks,” he said. “How long would it take for the advertising to come? It would be successful, it would work and you’d make … a little bit of money. Then again, the Journal and the Times make very little money now.”

Ouch. But what-if indeed, especially if Murdoch is footing the bill to find out?