Futurist Paul Saffo made a prediction: The future belongs to neither the conduit or content players, but those who control the filtering, searching, and sense-making tools we will rely on to navigate through the expanses of cyberspace. Source -1994

In a world of hyperabundant content, point of view will become the scarcest of resources, and we will race to model human points of view within the personalities of our software agents. I will even bet that an industry will grow up around individuals licensing their points of view for use in context engines in exchange for usage royalties. Imagine being able to give your news agent the personality and perspective of Walter Cronkite, Howard Stern, or John Updike, or consult the software-doubles of Siskel and Ebert for advice on cool movies to view. Just as some talk show hosts have become the movers and shakers of post-network TV today, individuals with unique points of view could become the superstars of cyberspace, their personalities immortalized in software traversing the web.

Players

• Google (obviously)
• Facebook - social media is a filter (not always a good one
• Academic?
  

Tools

• Channels (make selection for you) (is this going to last. Do you care "what channel is on?"
• Agents (Pandora) algorithmic parameters defining these agents will spell wild success or utter doom for one player after another.