Attack of the empowered consumer

I spent this morning at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association confab in San Francisco, taking in the keynote panel [see a video clip] entitled "Attack of empowered consumer: Understanding new media markets." The first part of the session title is a typical Hollywood movie come-on, but the second part accurately described the issues that the cable and every other media outlet are facing. Empowered consumers, or customers or businesses, aren't attacking--they are simply taking advantage of the Internet, broadband and the digitization of everything. The panelists