Media Cloud: see the flow of media - builds an archive of news/blogs, applies language processing, and give you ways to analyze and visualize the data.
this discussion by MIT's Henry Jenkins is a fabulous overview of the role Social Media played in the 2008 Presidential Campaign (and, by extrapolation) and how these technologies are shaping cultural and personal time. Very good!
Edge discussion of the "informavore" - must watch! Four futurist technologists discussing how the web and related media are quickly, breathtakingly changing our culture