Carpe Diem!

As 2005 rolls to an end, I am left with several realizations. The web has now made it possible for everyone to become a somebody ala a blogster. And, with Andreeson's new toy, "http://www.ning.com" the web has also made it possible for everyone to be their web site. The problem is, with all this blah, blah, blah, are are "better" society? Do we feed more hungry mouths, do we keep more healthier? Are we richer? Cleaner?

I remember when I first interviewed with Goldman Sachs in 1986 and I blew the interview by answering the "how would I invest $1 million dollars" question by stating (at the end of what I though was a solid diversified approach) that I'd give some of the money away. Wasn't it important to be socially conscious? In all activities? No. Never when you're an investment banker. "No one ever hires their investment banker to give their money away," David Darst (then head of Securities Sales and kind of my mentor during the interviewing) told me. The same adage - making a difference in the world -- I feel holds true for the Internet. 2005 is definitely the year of http://www.Google.com and http://www.ning.com shows us that we are on the verge of making it possible for each of us to have our own search engine -- yippee. 2006 may very well be the year of "so what." Not to be negative or anything but China and its stability really will have a lot to do with our future.
I'm getting my news by running bablefish on baidu.com's new's link so I can read their news in English.

Where do you get get your news and how do you change your life because of it?