When it comes to the reporting of real-time news, blogs and bloggers are -- as many of the media is finally finding out -- a force to be reckoned with. When the Apple iPhone was unveiled this past Tuesday, much of the tech and business world was glued to the news to find out what Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs had up his sleeve. Or his turtleneck.

Sometimes, "the Steve" can shake the fortunes of markets and companies just by announcing products. Apple fans everywhere make as much noise as possible and Apple again demonstrates that it is a company tuned into the needs of consumers like no other.

But, MSNBC, Fox, CNN, the New York Times and other media outlets were not covering Apple's latest announcement in real-time that involved the long-anticipated mobile phone that may change several major industries this year and into the next. Nope, it was bloggers -- and the best one on the planet at covering live news like this is our sister blog over at Engadget, which covered the entire Macworld keynote address with Steve Jobs in perfect minute-by-minute fashion -- something standard news mediums could not (or would not) do.

Is blogging changing the face of media-n-things? As an investor, if you were tuned into Engadget's coverage as the iPhone was announced -- and bought AAPL shares as soon as that happened -- you'd be sitting on over 9% gains over a couple of days. 30 minutes later (for AP news releases, etc.) and you would have had less of a gain -- so who rocked the foundation of short-term investing this past Tuesday in San Francisco? The bloggers, that's who.