It's one thing for an airline or a real-estate management company not to understand that social media has caused the balance of power to shift by giving a megaphone to erstwhile "little guys." It's another for one of the leaders of the social media revolution to miss it.

The latest culprit (or victim) is Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. TechNewsWorld has a story today about how, from their point of view, Wales used unpleasant strong-arm tactics to try to get them to kill or otherwise significantly alter a story.

Now this story is written entirely from TechNewsWorld's point of view. So we're not suggesting it be taken as the final word on what happened between the two. But one thing's clear: Wales managed to piss TechNewsWorld off enough that they took to their airwaves to publicize his (in their mind) transgressions.

BFD, right? Well, no. The story is getting picked up by blogs and sites as far away as China. Which may only make Wales—as it probably did United Airlines and Horizon Realty—wish he'd handled the situation differently.