The Opening

Blogs -- the democratization of the media. Forget Big Brother, brother, little brother is watching you.

The world talks about how the Internet and telecom were a terrible bubble that destroyed all kinds of capital and have doomed the global economies for depression in the coming years. Nope, you gotta flip it: The Internet has produced billions of dollars in profits for companies like eBay, Google and Yahoo. The Internet, via email, instant messaging, and websites, blogs, chat rooms, as well as cell phones and all the other modes of communication that we have now have enabled exponential efficiencies and gains in productivity and outright wealth.

The world tells us how the media is being concentrated and commercialized and, frankly, corrupted by big business and big government. Sorry, Charlie, let’s flip that: Internet blogs, news sites like TheStreet.com, email newsletters -- not to mention all the new modes of communication exploding off the Metcalfe network effect -- are the democratization of the media in action.