Time magazine took an unprecedented step and named you the person of the year for taking control of global media. Reading MoreWillie.com surely helped your stand...and I’m sure viral video sites such as YouTube.com and MetaCafe didn’t hurt.

 

What an incredible thing though...The global public really has taken control of all sorts of online media. From news to videos, the internet has become an open forum for people across the globe to express themselves. Blogs, viral videos, massive photo sharing communities like Flickr, user-generated news sites (Digg.com), Wiki, social networks, even consumer-generated advertising...all took off in a explosive manner in 2006 and captured a domain that previously was relegated to large television networks and media conglomerates.

 

Take for instance this site. I started it about a year ago. It was a basic site with just a simple blog and a handful of visitors a day. Fast forward 11 months...the interface has evolved, I get visitors from every corner of the world, and am on the front page of Google. (Still haven’t completely beat out the other Willie Morris though...Postmortem fame is a tough thing to contend with...)

 

The point is...this was all possible only because of the shift to public-driven online media enterprises. The amount of interaction & collaboration between people is unbelievable. And the spectrum it encompasses...no matter where you are in the world, if you have a computer and some sort of connection you can get online and express yourself in an innumerable amount of ways. We have truly taken control of the information age.

 

We’ve posted embarrassing videos, we’ve delivered news that no one else would, we’ve uncovered scandals, we’ve forced companies to take responsibility, we’ve changed the heart of the media industry, we’ve helped each other out, we’ve decided what was important to us, we’ve fought the man. Our voice is loud and our platform is unwavering. We are the global public and we are just starting.