AP Photo

Four decades ago, when police and national guardsmen attacked protestors at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the protesters shouted, "The whole world is watching."

However arresting those images were, they could not possibly compare to the flood in recent weeks of YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Twitter tweets, Facebook pages, and blogs dedicated to events in Iran. Today, the world is not only watching -- in an important way it is participating, as observers dig down for their own raw footage, reporting, and analysis pouring out of Iran.