Power 2.0

Most tellingly, the company [News Corp] spent $400m on MySpace.com, the social networking phenomenon that has proved hugely popular with 35m regular users on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr Murdoch has undergone a Damascene conversion, admitting he hugely underestimated the power of the web. He said last night: "It is a creative, destructive technology that is still in its infancy, yet breaking and remaking everything in its path. We are all on a journey, not just the privileged few, and technology will take us to a destination that is defined by the limits of our creativity, our confidence and our courage."

- Guardian Unlimited | Internet means end for media barons, says Murdoch

So, as Squash points out, Rupert Murdock is now chugging hard at the Web 2.0 Kool Aid. In fact he's even managing to sound even more like a dot.com flashback victim than even the hardiest of the 2.0 players. Yet nothing at all illustrates shocking inequalities of the "long tail" than that $400 million that Murdock dropped on MySpace. In the old model a media company had thousands of paid employees, journalists, anchors, video editors, printers, delivery guys, all there just to get the content made and to the audience. Now the same company, has millions of "users" doing the creation and distribution work for free. Is that empowering the little guy, or is that empowering Mr. Murdock and co's bank accounts?