The first place that I noticed the net making a difference in real life was when I moved to Baltimore, and I found out how much easier Mapquest made it for me to find a home where I wanted, because I knew were each address was instantly.

It’s now entering politics, where you have someone setting up a searchable database of Debra Jean Palfrey’s (aka the DC Madame) phone records.

You have also found this in the turnaround of massive document dumps by the Bush administration on the US Attorney scandal, frequently in a matter of hours.

The ability to being hundreds, if not thousands, of people together to do the scut work of investigative journalism has the real possibility being a major game changer for journalists, particularly those who don’t have the resources of the NY times behind them.