Can't Find a Job? Check Out this List

So you can't find a job. Well, Fortune Magazine has just released a list of the 100 top companies to work for and many of those companies are actively hiring at this time. The benefits these companies offer are unheard of and they provide such because they want to keep their employees. They remain hungry for those employees they consider to be the best and the brightest.

Altogether there are 100 companies listed, I want to focus on the top ten.

1. NetApp replaces Google as the number one company to work for. Rising up from 14 last year, this company actually enjoyed an increase in job growth. The average salary employee makes is over $133,000 and the typical hourly employee make over $80,000 (the example was an "executive assistant"). The company provides a fitness center, compressed work week, five paid days for volunteer work, and telecommuting.
   
   
2. Edward Jones bucks a trend among Wall Street firms, rising to number 2 from number 4 last year. Average salaried employees make well over $70,00 and hourly employees make well over $30,000. The company offers paid sabbaticals, subsidized gym membership, and telecommuting.


3. The Boston Consulting Group rose from number 11 to 3 in the last year. Again, this company enjoyed job growth and the average salaried employee makes over $140,000 a year, while hourly employees make over $60,000. Hundred percent health coverage, paid sabbaticals, and a compressed workweek are among the reasons this company is so highly rated.


4. Dropping from number 1 is Google, which has been forced to drop some of the things that has made its work place famous, but is still considered one of the best companies in the country to work for. There was no provision by Google as far as salaries go, but the company is famous for its onsite childcare, onsite fitness center, telecommuting, and more.


5. Wegmans Food Mart chimes in at number five (dropping from number 3). It is unusual for a grocery store to land in such a high position. The employee incomes are among the highest in the industry, with salaried employees making over $50,000 a year and hourly income employees making close to $30,00, on average. Compressed work weeks and job sharing are among the unique characteristics of this company.


6. Cisco Systems stays the same rank as last year. Income for employees are very high, with salaried employees making over $130,000 a year and hourly ones enjoying close to $60,000 on average (the latter being for an Administrative Assistant). Onsite child care, onsite fitness center, and telecommuting are among the reasons it is in the top ten.
   
7. Genetech drops from number 5, but still maintains among the best work environments in a country (biotech) that has been hit fairly hard. Employees enjoy high incomes (over $112,000 for salaried and close to $70,000 for hourly), plus paid sabbaticals, onsite childcare, telecommuting and much more.
   
8. Methodist Hospital System. Methodist (up from ten) is part of the largest medical center in the world (Houston, Texas) and a leader in offering excellent jobs. The gap between salaried and hourly incomes is surprisingly small with the former making over $88,000 and the later making over $80,000. Furthermore, the company offers an excellent onsite fitness facility, job sharing, and a compressed work week.


9. Goldman Sachs turns up at nine (the same as last year) in spite of being a part of all the turmoil that hit Wall Street in September. The company did not provide information on hourly wages, but salaried employees make over $140,000 a year. Onsite childcare, compressed work week, and job sharing are among the reasons people love to work here.


10. Nugget Market (rose up from 12), rounds up the list at number 10. This grocery store offers very high incomes of over $116,000 for those on salary and well over $30,000 for those being paid hourly. One hundred percent health care coverage makes this company unique in an industry not noted for its benefits.
    

It is good to know that, even in a weak economy like the one we are in, that there are still excellent companies trying to make work a great place to go to.

Kevin Price is a syndicated columnist whose articles frequently appear at ChicagoSunTimes.com, Reuters.com, USAToday.com, and other national media. Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at PriceofBusiness.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.

Google's Street View: A Very Strange Trip

Any frequent reader of this blog or listener of my show knows that I am from the Detroit, Michigan area. The suburb of Ferndale, to be precise. Growing up there, I had a relatively happy childhood and loved my neighborhood in particular. I have told my kids more than a few stories of my old home town.

The last time I visited was 1981 after living in Texas for around five years. My brother was there at the time and I thought it would be fun to visit. He was planning on coming back to Texas with me so I spent a few weeks catching up with old friends and visiting some of the sites and sounds that made Michigan home. I really thought I would visit again, but that has yet to materialize.

A few years ago Google Maps came on the scene with its nifty satellite and I finally got to see the old neighborhood. Sure, it was just the roof tops and really rough side views, but I got a sense of what it looked like. Then we got Streetview. I noticed it was only at a few locations at first -- none near the Detroit area -- but in no time it all it was in Pleasant Ridge, about a half a mile from where I grew up, and this week, it is along Hilton and zipped right down Goodrich, where I grew up. I saw the church at the end of the street that I went to, the tree I ran into playing football, and all the homes of my friends I grew up with.

It was interesting and, oddly, largely took away my desire to visit. I don't know if that was an intended result, but the travel industry may never be the same. I tell you something else it may have shot -- new websites designed to connect people to their old home towns. At least any such sites that would charge money.

However, Streetview is still cool and I'll keep watching for its expansion. I'm looking forward to seeing the park that I grew up (and often fell down) in.

Click the Google Map image above and you will find the map and a little guy standing on my street. Click Streetview, and then the little guy and you will see where I grew up. If you care. I liked it any way. You might like to go from there to some great places you want to remember.

Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at HoustonBusinessShow.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.

Time Magazine's Best Lists: Worst Business Deals

I have been summarizing my thoughts on Time Magazine's Best Lists over the last several weeks and hadn't even touched their business lists. Until now. I found the magazine's Worst Business Deals" very interesting.

* The Blackstone Group going public. It looked hot after years of some rather amazing deals, but lost 38 percent of its value in no time after going public. In my experience, VC firms are the epitome of feast and famine. It isn't the kind of place one puts the family nest egg in. However, you can't count these guys out yet. The stock market is a long term game. It is only a bad deal if you cash in from the early highs.

* DaimlerChrysler pays to unload Chrysler. After an amazing array of mathematic antics, Daimler actually paid $2 billion to unload the company to Cerberus. With mathematic geniuses like this, is there any question as to why Daimler was going broke?

* Microsoft overpays for Facebook. First it was MySpace and Murdoch, then it was Google and YouTube. Microsoft simply had to get into the social networking phenomenon. The one it bought a stake in was Facebook for $240 million. The deal gives Facebook an implied value of $17 million, but is only expected to make $30 million a year. Time Magazine fears it looks like AOL a few years ago. I agree.

* KKR and Goldman Sach's pull the plug on Harman Industries International. Time notes that "Private equity shop Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group's private equity unit pulled out of their $8 billion offer to buy high-end audio equipment manufacturer Harman Industries International, claiming a "material adverse change" in Harman's business. Harman's stock plummeted more than 20%." Harsh indeed!

* Bank of America dumps $2 billion dollars into Countrywide. "Better make that $1 billion — at least that's what B of A's investment was worth as of December 1. Bank of America thought it had picked an opportune time in August to invest in Countrywide's mortgage machine, but the mortgage mess hadn't bottomed out yet." Bank of America was already limping along due to its troubling approach to providing credit to its clients. This situation only makes matters worse.

Some of these stories are not as entertaining or as sexy as some of the others covered, but their implications are far reaching financially. And they are far reaching to investors, customers, and obviously the employees

Creating the New Media

The Internet has turned the world upside down. Brick and mortar has been rapidly replaced by click and portal. People have huge businesses without a building and the hottest TV networks are online.

For example, YouTube wasn't just another "website", but was the first new major network of the 21st century. Clever websites are not purchased by companies like Google for over $1.6 billion. A completely new media platform that has the convenience of the web and the visual qualities of TV apparently are.

The changes going on through the Internet are becoming an obsession of mine, something I discuss on my radio show (see video above), write about in this blog, and even think about when I'm alone (while looking at websites that fuel this interest).

Adding to this Internet debate is a website I recently stumbled on called Brightcove.com. The purpose of the site is to help people and businesses to create online TV networks of their own. Their client list is impressive, including A&E and CBS News (broadcast and cable), The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal (newspapers), as well as Time and Prevention (magazines). However, the site's value isn't limited to companies in the media, but to any company trying to develop creative ways to attract and keep customers.

What is most interesting about Brightcove is that you don't have to be a mega corporation to create your own online network. Instead, they offer options that allows small businesses to have the platform at no cost and share revenue for advertisements that they can run on the site they give you (with plenty of room for additional inventory). This makes it possible to have a very powerful media platform with minimal investment.

In addition, the site offers several lengthy articles on how to make the most of this impressive tool. I've spent hours on the site and I suggest you spend time there too.

Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and is Publisher of the Houston Business Review.

Ms. Dewey Isn't Worth the Wait

One of my favorite shows is the Big Idea with Donny Deutsch on CNBC. Tonight they discussed several innovative ideas including a "dynamic new website" called "MsDewey.com." The primary attraction to the site is suppose to be the lovely Ms. Dewey (see photo), who provides an interactive approach to search engines.

The site is the product of Microsoft and the lovely Ms. Dewey (played by actress Janina Gavankar) invites people to put a search item in, comments on your subject, entertains herself and the user while you scroll the results, and simply offers a unique approach to searching.

The site is suppose to challenge Google and other search engines with its unique interaction and beautiful model. I don't believe any of Ms. Dewey's competition are losing sleep. The concept seems like it would be attractive -- combine entertainment with searching. However, I think it fails on several fronts:

* It is extremely slow in its initial loading.

* It is very slow in its searches.

* It makes several mistakes. It does such often. I searched for several items that came up with thousands of responses on other search engines and turned up nothing on Ms. Dewey.

In my opinion, Ms. Dewey will not work because I believe people do not want to combine searches with entertainment. In my case, I will forget what I was looking for if I am sidetracked by entertainment. Mixing the two is very frustrating. Worse still, Ms. Dewey isn't that interesting. I find getting the exact information I want quickly to be far more enjoyable. I think most search engine users will agree.

When It Comes to Blogs, Is It "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow"?

I'm always interested in trying to improve the quality of my blogging, so I often spend time researching blogs recognized by others as among the best on the Web. Recently I put "best political blogs" in my Google search engine and found a link to Forbes Magazine on the subject. I was attracted to Forbes because I largely agree with them ideologically.

I immediately jumped in to check out their choices and found the following reoccurring messages: "nothing new here," "no longer posting," and other posts indicating their demise either voluntarily or due to other causes. At first I found this alarming. Although all of them had high Google rankings, how could they go from the top list of publications to no longer in business? I looked a little closer and found that many of them that do have posts are months old. Finally, I looked at the link and found that this was a list from 2003.

This, of course, made me feel a little better because it provided explanation, but it made me wonder about the future of this blog. Sure, eventually, all things will pass, but three or four years doesn't seem that long to go from the pinnacle in their industry to a mere after thought.

All of these blogs were written by individuals and their survival depended on those people remaining interested or able to keep writing. It helped me to see the wisdom of a Huffington Post (see founder Arianna Huffington's photo, above), which is made up of the opinions of many rather than one. Any one of these writers can walk away, but the blog would continue. I might have to join or put together such a blog.

A Blogging Success Story

Many journalists, talk show hosts, and others in the media subscribe to Google Alerts in order to keep informed on specific issues (this is a great free, tool that I strongly recommend). I have several, including one called "Houston Real Estate" which I use to prepare for the Houston Home Show I host with Mark Jeffrey of UBuildIt (Friday at 1 PM on CNN 650). Recently I received an alert that included a blog post that discussed Houston's booming economy and how that should contribute to continued growth in Real Estate in the future.

That post was written by Rose Stabler (photo at left, a local business broker), who ironically just decided to start a blog in the last few weeks. It was an excellent piece and clearly shows that Houstonians can expect this economy to continue to grow, that unemployment should be well below the national average, and that housing should continue to improve for investment and other purposes. I asked her to be on today's show and she did a fine job pointing to the reasons for continued optimism. Her interview will be available online at the Houston Business Review (I suggest getting a free subscription to it by clicking here so you can be kept up to date on all our media). I encourage sharing that segment of the show with others who wonder about the future of Houston's economy.

I'm not suggesting that if you start a blog you will be on the radio speaking to thousands in a few weeks. I do believe, however, that starting a blog can differentiate you as an expert (something Rose is doing very well in her blog), can attract attention from those who can help your business, and can provide discipline to help you become better at what you do. For those of you who spend hours reading blogs, but debate whether or not you should get in, the water is great.

What I read: Webpronews.com, My Favorite Ezine for Web Professionals

I'm not much of a computer geek, but I'm hungry for information on the Internet. My favorite source is Webpronews. I love everything about it.

* It's free, which means it clearly fits my budget. They may offer another newsletter with a cost, but I haven't looked for it and I have been thrilled with what I have received to date.

* I love their subject lines. I get dozens of emails daily (actually close to 100), several of them newsletters. Most of them use their subject lines to state the name of the newsletter, so I have no idea what I will find in it. Webpronews does an excellent job of making me believe it is worth the effort to open. Currently I have a dozen titles in my inbox from them and many have not yet been opened, but they are all in there because of a compelling title. Some interesting titles include "Create your own Web office in 60 seconds," which I have no idea what that means, but it sounds quick and interesting. Another one is "Identify prospects while they are on your website," who wouldn't want that? Another is "Google to sell TV time online," which I'm sure will have an impact on every industry.

* I love the articles. They are short, concise and highly readable for non-techs like me. They recognize individuals are interested in the Internet, but not technically minded. Yet they are also smart in their writing and (from what I can tell) capable of appealing to any type of personality.

* Did I mention that it was free?

Go ahead and order it at http://www.webpronews.com/signup.html. I'm glad I did. By the way, for the cynics, this is not an advertisement, but comes from a desire I have had for quite some time to spread the good word on this great ezine.

TV Lovers Simply Don't Get It

For quite some time the rumor has been that TV is in trouble because of the rise of the Internet. The theory is that, with the rapid expansion of more portable devices, the growth of bandwidth in Internet connections, and the 24/7 availability of entertaining content, will make the TV increasingly obsolete. Geoff Colvin of Fortune Magazine begs to differ and believes that either in spite of the Web or because of it, more people are watching more TV than ever. Colvin argues that since (according to polls) the average American is spending over four hours a day watching TV, the box has nothing to worry about. He couldn't be more wrong.

Americans are already spending a significant amount of time watching DVDs on TV. Others are watching TV programs online, making the distinction between TV and computer time quite blurry (e.g., the average age of nightly news viewers is 60, younger viewers are getting their stories online and when they want it). In my opinion, people only spend time watching TV because the link between the computer and TV hasn't become more simplified (although it is getting there). When people begin to instantly pull what they want from the Web to their TVs, individuals will become their own program directors and will largely ignore what is being offered by broadcast or cable.

Sure, some shows and their networks will survive, but the television landscape will be changing forever. Colvin is right that the boxes and screens that we are watching today will continue to survive (and even improve), but the content that goes into them will be increasingly driven by the Web and not by the networks. And all the more the Web is driven by users. I believe the best proof of this is YouTube, which I call the first major TV network of the 21st century that happens to be on the Internet. Google knew exactly what it was doing when it purchased that site for over $1.6 billion. They know that the future of the programming you will want to watch will be driven, not surprisingly, by you.

Old Spice Tries to Reach Young Guys

The purpose of advertising is to create awareness about a brand -- sure it's suppose to sell things too -- but getting the name out there is a primary concern. That's why advertisements don't typically have long educational messages or persuasive speeches, but usually cut to the chase and hope that their clever little line and/or visual will make you remember them.

Each week I get Sports Illustrated and this week I noticed the full page advertisement for Old Spice on the back cover. It is a photo of Faye Dunaway (circa 1968) showing her lounging on a couch and looking very attractive. I didn't like the line that went with it, however, which was "If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist" ("it" would be Old Spice, of course). According to the New York Times, this ad is part of an aggressive campaign developed by agency Wieden & Kennedy, which is best known for the "Just Do It" campaign for Nike. Old Spice is investing $100 million in its efforts this year alone.

I found this ad irritating. After all, it is kind of disconcerting thinking about the process that they are implying as it relates to my grandparents. I think you know what I mean. But more importantly, I almost get the impression that they think I owe them something. "Hey, buddy, since you wouldn't exist without us, you need to guarantee our existence." I don't do very well with guilt trips and it really speaks of desperation to me.

My initial response was to write a blog entry, but as you can see I also did some research and found that this is part of a much larger campaign. One of the ads (see the photo above) actually made me blush at the sight of an ice cream cone! This ad isn't my style either. So for me, this ad campaign is coming up short.

However, this campaign wasn't for me, it is clearly an appeal to younger men and not those in their 40s who are very committed to the products they use (I like rubbing alcohol after I shave). They are going to a group that could be more easily motivated by such ads. A younger generation. Furthermore, the ad did catch my attention enough to do a little research and I actually spent multiples more in time than the company who developed the campaign believed I would. My Google search on the campaign indicates that I'm not the only one, there is a great deal of "ink" devoted to this story, resulting in millions of dollars in brand awareness. As I pointed out at the beginning, that is one of the primary reasons companies do ad campaigns. This blog entry is just one more example of free exposure that the brand received, even if it wasn't completely favorable.

Why Can't Blogger Spell "Blog"?

I love to write and have done it for many years, but any reader of this blog can appreciate the fact that I need a spell check. Often my entries includes terms such as "blogs," "blog", "blogging," etc. You would think that a website such as "Blogger" would easily approve such terms. Think again, any word that has the root "blog" turns up as misspelled on this site.

To me, this doesn't make sense. How is it possible? This is a Google owned company and not some minor player on the Web. I've spoken to friends and colleagues and they seem as confused as I am. My oldest son, KJ, thinks that Blogger may use the Microsoft Word spell check for corrections. If that is so, it is using earlier editions because I believe the most recent Word includes blog.

Whatever the case, I think this demonstrates how rapidly things are changing. So amazing are the shifts that even a company like Google has difficulty keeping up with them and incorporating them in a site that is as important as Blogger.

Britney Spears' Buzz

I'm sure regular readers of this blog are shocked to see an entry on Britney Spears, but I felt I had to in light of the conversations I have had with many of my colleagues recently. It seems whenever I meet business associates or friends, the topic of my blog continues to pop up. Lately, most of those conversations have ended with questions about when I was going to write about the latest celebrity bad girl.

Mind you, most of my colleagues are men in the age range of mid 30s through the 50s and their interest seems to be clearly tongue in cheek. But for some reason it is always Britney -- not Rosie, not Tom Cruise, not even Donald Trump -- that comes up.

I mentioned this to one of my friends and associates, Andy Valadez of Marketing Dynamics and he suggested that it was probably due to the large number of searches that are done with her name. Makes sense, so what would a fee market, pro-business, largely conservative blogger like myself write about Britney? Well, here a few possible topics:

* "Britney Without Panties -- Good for the undergarment Industry or Bad for Wall Street?" (or the other way around). I've seen so much mention of her choice (or lack of choice) of underwear, and to hear the comments, one would almost think this is important. From how many stories I have seen on it, it appears we have had several slow news days.

* "Britney's Step by Step Guide to Winning Child Custody in a Divorce." Such a book would be only one or two pages long and with very large print, but if they changed it to "How Not To..." it would be encyclopedic in scope.

* "To Fade Away or to Crash and Burn: Britney Weighs Her Options." Britney strikes me as simply one in a long series of teeny bop stars who either disappear or crash and burn. She seemed to try the former and is now out working the latter, but I wonder if either is working for her.

In the end, I will simply write that I don't really care, though I hope she becomes a decent parent for her children and figures out how to be happy. I also hope I get picked up in more Google searches, since she remains the center of so many conversations.

I Want to Play -- Er, Work -- at Google

Fortune Magazine's annual list of the best companies to work at was topped by Google and the difference between this generous company and others (even those on the list) is huge The following is a short list of some of the great things about life (and work) at the search engine giant:

* free gourmet meals from several different restaurants

* the ability to do your laundry, at no cost

* a place to drop off your dry cleaning

* one can get an oil change and get a massage all onsite

* one can enjoy a huge game room

* work is such a comfortable place that it is sometimes difficult to get Google employees to leave the office

This last item is a plus for the company and the "payoff" to Google for its generosity. The company has employees who don't have to be told to work over time, they are glad to do it in order to meet the company's objectives. Not only are employees pleased to work there, thousands are eager to get hired (with 1,300 applications coming in daily to chase down about that number of jobs available each year). People are well aware of the fact they have a really good thing.

I think Google is a great place a work and an excellent example to businesses around the world. They choose to do it, not merely for altruism, but to make it one of the most competitive companies in the world.

WebProNews Internet Winners

WebProNews is weighing in on the 8 biggest Internet winners for 06, and I found the list most interesting and something others might wish to read. I like the list and will only add a few edits. I encourage everyone to go to WebProNews and sign up for their newsletter, it is one of my favorite sources. I tell you how they won me over, great headlines in the subject line works every time. Here's their list. What other winners and losers would you add?

1. Google. Every year for Google has been a breakout year for the eight-year-old company, but 2006 was a blockbuster. Besides adding user-generated video phenom YouTube to its roster for $1.65 billion in stock, Google remained a favorite of Wall Street, with stock catapulting over $500 per share. That spike was more than enough to cover the cost of purchasing YouTube. And then they moved in with NASA.

I couldn't agree more. Google has moved from a site, to a verb (in searches, thus googling), to a legend.

2. YouTube. If Google was a winner just for acquiring YouTube, then YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steven Chen, who created a site and flipped it for major moolah in just a year and a half, without even demonstrating how the site could turn a profit, are the biggest table scrap winners of the year. They still run their company and still got those stock certificates.

YouTube may be the first major television network for the 21st Century. What better place for it to be than online?

3. Broadband. Dialup Internet access has become akin to having outdoor plumbing. In the US, broadband access hit nearly 80 percent of the population. Because people no longer had to begin downloading a large file and then go to dinner while it finished, they spent more time actually enjoying video and audio content on the Web.

Broadband may be number 1, because YouTube and many interactive websites needed this technology to increase the Web's relevance. Without broadband, their would be very little market for dynamic content, in my opinion.

4. Lawyers. Happy days are here again for the corporate attorney. As Internet companies become Web giants, the window for lawsuit, valid or not, frivolous or not, gets a lot bigger. Google settles with advertisers angry over click fraud for $90 million - that's $60 million in advertising credit for the advertiser and $30 million cash for the attorneys who won that case. Yahoo's lawyers are so good, all they had to say was 'sorry about that' and write a check for $5 million to the complainant's attorneys.

Since I'm not a big fan of lawyers, I'll refrain from commenting much, but they have clearly been huge beneficiaries of the legal struggles related to the Web.

5. Social Media. For the end user it's been all about friends' lists, blogs, wikis, amateur videos, vlogging, podcasting, and instant messaging. From the consumer end, it's been a communication bonanza and the official creation of the citizen media. Ideally, the elite and powerful only provide the means by which the people communicate, not control the communication itself, and the people are eating up. And for the professional media, if we hear the words "MySpace" or "YouTube" one more time...

This is obviously huge and as important as the "social" part, is the participatory part, in my estimation. It is being able to influence media that has made such sites so huge.

6. Podcasting. The word "podcast" may have been Oxford's word of the year in 2005, but nobody really knew anything about it until 2006. Now organizations of all types - newspapers, corporations, educational institutions, radio stations, kids - have started their own virtual radio stations. Though Apple made threats to those audacious enough to use the term "podcast," a trademark infringement Apple said, all it took was a tongue-in-cheek one-dollar check to Apple head Steve Jobs to get official approval to podcast at will.

This, too, may be a little low on the list. Podcasting is creating a revolution that is striking fear in the heart of traditional media. People are looking for real, uncensored, and candid media; that typically cannot be done in a government regulated world of media. Traditional media, beware.

7. The Man. In all his incarnations, in government, media, or corporate America,The Man came out far ahead of the rest, even if he were scratched and bruised on the way. The G-Man, and his DOJ minions, strong-armed all the major search engines for their search data and got it, even from Google. Phones were tapped, records were seized, and online gambling, except that which is preferred by The Man, was banned. In China, The Man again forced Google to alter its search results to match the imposed cultural hegemony.

The government certainly was a big winner when it comes to the Internet in 2006, but in the top 8? I doubt it. I personally would put Rupert Murdoch in this spot for his ability to understand the power of the Internet and to transform his massive media empire into a responsive and dynamic media machine. This is being done through his very strategic Internet purchases.

8. The Proletariat. However, The Man hasn't always won this year. Though the telecommunications industry (one of The Man's most powerful front organizations) had Congress wrapped around its green finger, there were enough grass roots to forestall any legislation without meaningful Net Neutrality protections. With a massive Republican defeat in Washington, Net Neutrality has a fighting chance. When AOL tried to impose the equivalent of an email tax, the people revolted and AOL was forced to reconsider. When Britain proposed a blogger code of conduct, again the proletariat told The Man where to shove it. When TV wasn't as entertaining, when news wasn't as neutral or biased as it needed to be, when radio was too censored, and movies were far too polished, the people took the media into their own hands, which makes The Man very, very nervous.

I agree and so does Time Magazine which has called the Web contributor the "Person of the Year." That would be you and me! The world of the media is changing daily (maybe even hourly). Some, like Murdoch, are adapting and over time his traditional media will become a giant support to his Web media (just watch and see). Others are simply dead in the water, like the canal boat industry (no pun intended) that underestimated the power of trains, many in traditional media are still trying to charge for online content or are refusing to make dynamic media available (e.g., videos). Watch many traditional media go on the auction block and sell for cheap in the next few years.

This is a great list, but I would love your comments on this year's winners and losers. I would also like to know which companies or individuals you think will win big in '07.