A common debate is raging across the web. It is a debate about credentials and who is allowed to provide and distribute information. Should bloggers be considered journalists? Is wikipedia a trustworthy source of information? For that matter it is a question of who should tell us about our wars, the Pentagon or our soldiers? This debate is also about who can provide what services. Can a loosely-knit group of programmers provide software of equal quality to large corporations? And can independent artists and filmmakers and musicians gain the popularity of the mainstream entertainment? This is largely a debate about expertise and it won’t likely be settled by a debate at all but by the rules of an emerging medium. Read more…