• by Christopher M. Schroeder , November 1, 2004

Last week I wrote about how thousands of individuals - regular folks like you and me - were using eBay to cut out the middleman in retail. Form a relationship with a wholesaler, strike a deal with a drop-shipper, open a smart site on eBay, and one can make hefty margins a brick and mortar business would die for.

The power the Internet has put into the hands of the individual is only beginning to be appreciated. And as true as it is in buying and selling, it is turning the media industry on its ear. What a world of TiVos and IPTV will mean to broadcast and cable is the subject of another column. As today is Election Day, it is fitting and proper to consider five phenomena in the world of news and information.

First, the Internet disaggregates that which was once aggregated. A newspaper is many things to many people, but at its essence it is a one-stop shop of a wealth of news, background, and shopping information. Pick up any section, any sub-section of a newspaper, however, and each of us could name a half a dozen well-funded Web sites trying to make a business there alone.

The Monsters, Hotjobs and dozens of industry-specific job sites are clearly pressing our classifieds. But disaggregation affects all content. Need the weather, you'll check out Weather.com or your Weatherbug. Interested in sports, Espn.com, the league and team sites are all must-stops. Blogs, message boards, and a host of communities all compete for our time and attention.

Second, the Internet makes the individual the new aggregator. A myriad of tools allow for this. Google News is a marvelous aggregator of news that matters to you. The recent re-release of MyYahoo! creates YOUR world of interests. RSS is a mechanism to make the cacophony of the Web relevant to your needs. New capabilities like Pluck.com, allows one to save and monitor critical sites (including transaction sites like eBay) right on your browser. The key here is that we - you, me - are the aggregators now.

Being your own aggregator has significant ramification for a third phenomenon - the Internet allows "truth" to be reassembled. Last spring when I was in Korea, a group of college kids described to me how they piece together "truth." They'll go to traditional news sites, then to blogs and message boards, then to primary sources, and then forward information and enter into discussions with friends.

That one site, or one voice, could possess a monopoly on truth was simply confusing to them. I see the same phenomenon on college campuses here. I see the same phenomenon in my OWN behavior. By combining traditional sources with a host of experts with primary sources and exchanges in my friends - we are having a new kind of news and information experience.

This new experience means a fourth phenomenon: the Internet redefines what is meant by "in depth" coverage. Historically in print, a piece in Foreign Affairs had to be more valuable, offer more information and knowledge, than a blurb in USA Today.

The Web, however, has not yet proven itself to be, in Barry Diller's words, a "narrative experience." People online are not only in transaction mode to buy a ticket or book a reservation, but they come in and out of information sites with great speed - average time on a news and information site is under 30 minutes per month! Depth online means multiple sources, and interactivity - a dialogue among interested people.

Fifth, the Internet calls into question the "death of objectivity" (I've always wondered how alive it was in the first place). We are, of course, all human, but at the very least the aspiration towards objectivity and fairness has long been imperative to garner perspective. Now, it is argued, a citizenry is more educated by destinations where the bias is clear and folks can, again, piece together their own truth. Bring back yellow journalism of the 19th century!

Aggregators and bloggers matter. Use groups and community sites matter. The moveons and meetups of the world matter. Jon Stewart matters. The reality is the days of Uncle Walter telling us what to think are fast fading. And at the top of it all, the individual matters most - determining what he or she wants to see, when, and how. Traditional media is in a perfect marketplace now - hence it must make its case every day for relevance and importance in our daily lives.

The good news might be that competition drives greater quality and site experiences, all leading to a more informed society.

But, there is a cautionary note in all this. A recent study on Amazon showed that the vast majority of conservative readers read only conservative books, and liberal readers liberal books. All this information at our finger tips, all the tools to make it relevant to us - could we, in fact, isolate ourselves in a cyber-cocoon of our own perspectives?

P.S. Please vote today.