For one of my meetings in NYC I took a taxicab from Penn Station to the Hilton at 54th Street, instead of the subway trains that I am used to. I took the taxi because I hadn’t had time for a coffee that morning and hence planned to down a grande Starbucks on taxi ride to the meeting. I got into some small talk with the cab driver and soon realized what a mistake it was to engage in such conversations. As soon as we started talking, the cabbie fully took charge of the conversation and started to demonstrate his inane ability to have a solution for every problem in the world. He seemed to have a solution for the traffic congestions in the city, to ongoing crisis in the middle-east, to mortgage meltdown, bailouts and stimulus plans. He had his reasons and conspiracy theories to back up his arguments. At one point I was about to tear my hair and jump out of the cab.

But later that got me thinking – isn’t the information explosion we see on the web something similar to what the taxi driver demonstrated verbally? Many proponents of the new media may disagree with me and state that there is a shift in authority and anyone with access to a blog can now deliver news, views and opinions and this provides a level playing field to anyone who has the talent and drive. The privilege no more rests with a limited few from the large publishing houses.

However that being said, aren’t unsolicited opinions the cheapest commodities in the world, and aren’t there millions like the taxi driver just waiting for an opportunity to dump them on anyone willing to lend an ear and listen. Just because the bandwidth and storage is free doesn’t mean the content the bandwidth carries can be garbage and trash.

This then raises another question – which channel of information influences you the most? Are there a few select sources that we can rely on for its authenticity or is everything flattened out without users getting a chance to separate the wheat from the chaff? I know I can bookmark content sources at delicious and dig it and, subscribe to select feeds, manipulate and mash it up etc., but then the fear of losing something that I did not know in the first place, makes me google the keyword once too often, and that lands me into an inextricable web. When I put this question to a friend – he retorted back and asked me my SocialMediaIQ – I said I don’t know, more so because he is a person who discreetly holds the view that the meaning of Copyright in blogosphere is same as the “Right to Copy”, which leaves the question of the most influencing channels unanswered.