(Dean Bradley/CBC)

By Dean Bradley, CBC contributor

Throughout the protest marches, the violence on Saturday and the police crackdown on Sunday, the main theme that I kept returning to was how virtual all of these events were.

It seemed that everyone had a camera or video camera. When I looked up "G20 Toronto" on Flickr, it listed more than 26,000 photos. YouTube lists more than 5,000 videos under the same search listing.

Saturday night, a friend and I walked around the downtown. We were able to get the latest updates on what was happening and where it was happening via his Twitter account on his iPhone.

While walking around following the latest tweet I wondered how mainstream media will fit into this social networking world. Will there be a time when people choose to watch events like the G20 through these types of sites instead of turning on their TV?

Related: Final thoughts: some perspective on the protests