The previous 18 days were hectic as I visited Jupitermedia operations in Germany, France, Luxembourg, England, Japan and Australia. I also had opportunities to meet with a variety of Internet media professionals around the world.

Optimism for the Internet space is as vibrant as ever. I last felt this way about business Internet opportunities in late 1998 and 1999. Of course today's dreamers and thinkers are sober in comparison to the dreamers of the late 1990s.

Google has taken the world by storm. Every conversation in each country invariably brought Google to the table. And of course Google's financials published last week were almost beyond comprehension in terms of growth and profits.

I also saw that one of our JupiterImage competitors, Getty Images, bought a major image player - Digital Vision (UK based). It was interesting to see Getty Images getting back into the acquisition game and validating our push into the importance of wholly owned images. We have been pushing the importance of having wholly owned images for about 15-months.

I also spent some time reading several of our JupiterResearch analyst blogs. They are all excellent, but I must point out that David Card is a must read for those interested in Internet Media commentary.

My final observation is that consolidation in the Internet space is accelerating. The big Internet players are getting bigger and picking off terrific vertical assets. But there are still enormous opportunities for new and focused vertical enterprises.