While people are sharing more personal information online than ever before, we're also seeing a world where the dominant players are creating nothing more than a walled garden. Part of this is a bigger/newer trend that we're starting to see: brands that are selling both products and services that are intertwined. We initially thought that the Internet was an open platform, but is it too closed?

If you take a serious look at the media world, there are only a handful of significant players. While it may be easy to define "significant" as a company doing interesting things, it's more practical to look at the media landscape. Last time I checked, no media company was behind the creation of Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or any other new media darling du jour. My guess is that they'll be investors as soon as they physically can be.