The Google fiber initiative is whipping communities and technology buffs into a frenzy.  City officials and economic development types across the country are scrambling to put together solid responses to Google's Request for Information in an effort to pursuade Google to choose their community as a test market for their experimental fiber optic network, while everyday citizens are coming together on Facebook pages to show their support for those efforts.

As Google's (or another company's) efforts ultimately become successful, we can't even begin to imagine the benefits that broadband speeds that are 100 times faster will bring.  Dreamers will dream, and businesses will innovate.  One thing that is certain is that it will completely change the way we consume media today.

Just over three years ago, in December of 2006, I posted a blog article about how ultra-fast broadband speeds would allow content producers to bypass traditional delivery methods (like network and cable/satellite channels) and simply deliver their content straight to consumers. At the time, I envisioned this as taking place in 5-10 years, and today we are right on schedule.

We are already seeing traditional media bypassed through YouTube and web-only channels, but most people are simply watching this content on their computers and not on televisions. The lack of quality in which these videos would stream live on a big screen makes watching them undesirable.

Televisions are already being connected to the Internet, however, and faster broadband will encourage the practice that much more.  As we start depending on the Internet to deliver channels to us, and not cable and satellite, we'll start seeing more web applications that are specifically designed for television viewers.

We'll start watching content that would have never been picked up by traditional media outlets in the past, but that is now available simply because someone had an idea and the camera crew to pull it off.

We'll interact with our television shows more, through live streaming social media feeds that you can watch (and comment on) as the show you are watching plays live.  (CNN recently did this online during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address).

Traditional television channels who fail to innovate will be cast aside.  Those who do will thrive, along with new media options that do not exist today.  How things will look 5 years from now are anyone's guess, but there has never been a more exciting time to work in media, or be a media consumer.