Interesting weekend that started with my feeling that the Internet has brought us a long way in just about a decade. There is probably no better place to see progress than in the way we can now shift the consumption of media to better suit our individual lives. And the best case study of that is the way people are getting educated on the current financial crisis.

First, a week ago I saw Twitter light up with a mention of how Jon Stewart had stuck it to CNBC over their ridiculously wrong calling on the bottom of the financial crisis. A little help from Hulu provided me with the most entertaining 7 minutes of my week.

Then at the office, Dave mentioned that he had heard a great episode of "This American Life" on the way to work that covered the whole financial mess in 59 minutes. I never listen to the radio but it was a cinch to download the podcast and queue it up for my weekend run.

I think of these two pieces of media, one produced for TV and one for the radio— neither consumed by me on their original channel— and I have to wonder whether this new ability to deliver information multimodaly won't end up being a much bigger deal than putting the means of production and distribution in the hands of everyone.

For sure it is likely to change the amount of sheer information the average worker/student/politician is capable of assimilating. Compare for instance what most anyone can tell you about the mortgage meltdown with respect to what that same person might have known about the savings&loans crisis of 15 years ago for a good example.