Social media developments have broadsided the local media industry in the past 18 months, leaving many publishers scrambling to try upskill from a predominantly media or sales background to having to understand technology constructs that - unless you graduated in the past three years - you were never taught. People like me are so ancient we started in what is now affectionately called 'print media' two decades ago on typewriters (those heavy machines like keyboards, but with big clickity clack keys that broke your nails and WITHOUT power cords and no EMAIL - really!). We have had to nervously embrace the power of the blogosphere where one arbitrary blogger can destroy a brand with one post (think Kryptonite locks; Dell 'hell') and editors blog about their latest brand extension (The Times' editor Ray Hartley). Forget the Age of Aquarius, it's the Age of Transparency and there's no where left to hide. The savvy media and marketing people are using bloggers to launch their products and 'leak' their news, thereby creating a veritable storm of chatter and anticipation across cyberspace from these 'consumer evangelists'. The local Stormhoek wine case study is one of the best globally on this. It's the old 'let me tell you a secret...' thrill of knowing something no one else does. We've seen this particularly lately in the new media world with the launch of innovations on blogs with all 'leaks' denied. What was very interesting on Bizcommunity.com this past week was the debate on social media by ITWeb founder and media innovator Jovan Regasek and one of the hottest local bloggers right now (barely out of school) Tyler Reed. Basically the shift in power to citizen journalists (bloggers) is not great news for media owners or marketers. Reed's view is that marketers need to embrace the power of social media and use it properly. The debate on the future of media and blogging ethics is still open... the conversation has only just begun! Keep talking! Louise Marsland, editor, editor@bizcommunity.co