I just came here from the buzz machine. He was talking about the "death of the lecture." One can replace "lecturer" with "panel member." Here's what I said about the buzz machine post: Though I have a passion for the format of speeches and lectures, they are torture when you, or worse, the lecturer, are not interested. The internet, I expect, will play an important role in this "death of the lecture" in bringing video lectures on demand. What's really happening is the "death of" time and space. This is what has motivated me to create Free Speeches: the goal of having many video speakers that talk about interesting things all accessible any time of day from anywhere in the world, for free.