The Internet has radically changed the way consumers buy books and airline tickets, trade stock and learn news. But the real estate industry has resisted change — and protected its commission structure — by controlling the information on its Multiple Listing Service database of properties for sale.

Two NYT pieces caught my eye today. The first by Damon Darlin on Redfin’s role in shaking up the real estate industry and the second by Jeff Leeds on Pandora’s role in shaking up the hierarchy of tastemakers across popular culture. Both are great examples of technology enabling the revolution and evolution of markets. While I am not a fan of the repeated use of the term consumer by Damon and Jeff both pieces are recommended reading.

The fact is, there’s never been a time when it’s been possible to communicate with more people, more richly and more instantly than we can now. For us to start wringing our hands because newspapers are going through testing times ..

Jane Martinson’s interview with Les Hinton is rather insightful on a number of levels. When Rupert Murdoch referred to ‘the coming golden age of media’ back in April 2005 he was fully mindful of the fact that it was already here. Sci-fi writer William Gibson’s words ‘the future is here. It is just not evenly distributed yet’ came to mind. It is fair to say that Rupert and Les have a pretty good head start on many of their peers. Whether they successfully maintain that lead only time will tell. Interesting times indeed.

Introducing some of the new voices on the internet – people who have made their mark by writing a blog or online journal. Mark Savage meets the men and women who’ve attracted attention in cyberspace by recording their thoughts and impressions on anything and everything.

Just finished watching Joanne Colan chatting with Steve Rubel on Rocketboom and listening to the first programme in a new Radio 4 series titled meet the bloggers. While Joanne and Steve spoke about the ‘Big’ picture Anna Pickard and Annie Mole shared their personal experiences with Mark. Looking forward to listening to future programmes.

As a valued member of the Amazon Associates program, we would like to introduce to you our newest product – “aStore by Amazon.” aStore vastly expands on our current link type offerings by giving you the ability to build a dedicated shopping area that can be embedded within, or linked to from, your website. Visit our demo store to see an example of a stand alone store.

I have always fancied having a virtual bookshelf. Having tested some of the stand alone offerings out there Amazon’s aStore Beta on first inspection looks as if it maybe what I’ve been searching for. A quick ten minute play yielded this first pass. Personalisation options are well thought out and very intuitive. An option I would like to see added is the ability to nominate third parties (charities / bloggers / podcasters / not-for-profits) of your choice as the direct beneficiaries of the sites proceeds. Well done Amazon on this latest initiative.

Shortly after our meeting, I realized that I had good chemistry with Mr. Oh. We discussed the future of the Internet, forms of new media as alternatives, which only the Internet could establish, and ideal models of it. I completely agreed with Mr. Oh’s belief that “all citizens are reporters” and his desire to “make free platforms for journalism in the 21st century.”

Masayoshi Son, President of Softbank, explains why he decided to invest $10m in OhmyNews Japan which offically launched yesterday.

Last time someone tried this it was a disaster, but Wired News has boldly put an article about wikis into a Socialtext wiki for anyone to be a Wired editor:

Ross Mayfield points out a Wired News experiment in collaborative journalism worth following. Whether the story makes it on Sept 7th remains to be seen. Also good to learn that the talented Kevin Anderson is departing the BBC and joining Mssrs MacIntosh and Hammersley at the Guardian. Certainly promises to be quiet the Xmas party this year with these three musketeers. Kevin gives a flavour of what his new role entails below …

[To act as] a role model for the new, participative form of journalism emerging from the best blogs. The role won’t just be about encouraging more journalists and commentators to blog. It should also be about experimenting with different forms of community interaction, spotting opportunities to launch new blogs and develop existing ones, and helping us form a strategy.

UPDATE : Peter Preston joins the conversation

UPDATE 2 : Chris Tilk joins to the conversation

UPDATE 3 : Jemima at PaidContent joins the conversation

UPDATE 4 : John Heilemann on the NYT digital makeover

UPDATE 5 : Mark Pearson on developments down under