That said, you can't deny the power that television has had on information consumption. They had a massive negative impact on the newspaper industry, such that even before the Internet, there were few cities that had more than one newspaper. The Internet has hit TV properties hard, a lot easier to name big TV networks than it is big newspapers.

I think it's even more accurate to say that TV and movie entertainment continues to dominate. HBO only recently gave in to opening its gates to the Internet; they were doing just fine producing new series and important documentaries. It's impossible to think of a premium print brand that can blow money on prestige products the way that HBO or its competitors can.

And of course, the movie industry is still going strong.

I agree that text is a more universal portable interface for transmitting information. But that's not a quality that hugely matters to consumers, compared to ease of consumption, nevermind the power of the visual medium.

The game-changing element about social video is that, unlike TV, people have the ability to create video nearly as easy as they consume it. I like reading letters as much as anyone...but I can definitely see why video will be seen as a much more engaging way to communicate for participants...less so for archivists, unfortunately.