Well, it definitely hasn’t come to pass, and I’m not to sure it will. While the Web has given consumers even more power to act as tastemakers, the influence of traditional media outlets and celebrity personalities is still strong.

I was reminded of this today when I watched a clip of Conan O’Brien on Hulu, in which he cites that books that make it into Oprah’s Book Club still regularly vault to the top of the sales charts.

Will the Web dethrone TV icons? Probably not; if anything, they can use it to reassert their influence. I think it would be erroneous to assume that in a digital age, people don’t crave media brands. More accurately, people will simply change their relationship to those brands with respect to how content is created and delivered, and how they can network as never before around that content. Any brand that leverages the Web correctly and embraces the shift in audience dynamic will still have influence, even in a decentralized online marketplace.