For the last several months I’ve been meaning to write an article summarizing what I see as a historical cycle that has swung from everyone having a soapbox (early politics, pre-radio, pre-television), to a few big players having a megaphone (TV news producers, radio personalities), back to everyone having a soapbox with a megaphone via the web.

This phenomenon of everyone having a voice is having dramatic impacts on the culture, and since I still haven’t gotten around to writing about it, I am linking to the opening remarks by Doc Searls at Syndicate last week in SF, as he summarizes it well.

On one side is the Static Web of sites that we architect and build and construct, at locations with addresses. On the other is the Live Web of pages that we write or author and publish and syndicate, and which can be browsed or subscribed to.

…

Here’s the biggest fact about the live Web: individuals are in charge. The group we used to call consumers are now producers. The demand side is supplying itself. Dealing with that fact, and taking advantage of it, is the biggest challenge and opportunity for everybody who wants to succeed in the live Web.

Think about photography for a minute. Used to be we consumed film and processing and showed prints to a few friends and family members before they went in drawers or albums on shelves in our homes. Now we produce our own photography, publish it on Flickr or BuzzNet, tag it and share it with thousands or millions of people, in a form where it is interesting and useful and completely drives the whole photography business, far more, in the long run, than any brand, even Kodak, ever did.

So there is a new balance of power in the world, that we’re seeing first in the live Web. Now individuals are in charge of their own lives, their own livings, and the things they do in the world, many of which involve production of goods like we’ve never seen before.

That’s the new context.

(Via HorsePigCow)

For a really fascinating post on the future of the Internet, check out this lengthy discussion. (Via Mike)

UPDATE: Another related article from Macleans is here, discussing the revolution as it relates to media production.