Social media and semantic web insights

Last few days there have been a number of major articles and presentations on social media and the internet which look to be a good resource in terms of making sense of it and considering future developments.  The presentations were at the World Economic Forum at Davos and the article is from the Economist.

Two hour workshop on social media at the World Economic Forum with all the main players participating and chaired by Loic Le Meur, a leading French blogger and social media commentator.  First 10 minutes were good and hopefully the rest will be equally good.

Tim Berners Lee on the semantic web and web scale developments.  A good five minutes.

The Economist and social networking.

World Economic Forum has had some very good sessions on social media and this was an excellent one with Chad Hurley, YouTube; Bill Gates and EU Commissioner Viviane Redding (v.good) from 2007.  Still appears to be available on Google Video.  Always good to see what still applies and what was seen as the key development three years ago.

Celebrity culture survives waves of ad revenue destruction in USA

 The Guardian highights a fascinating but gruesome picture of US magazine publishing and impact of recession and internet on magazine advertising revenues.  The article draws on annual figures for 2008/9 published by Magazine Publishers of New York.  What amazes me is how much advertising revenue, Time magazine still generates at over $400M in spite of a 13% fall in ad revenue during the year. 

People magazine is the king and queen of the print media - a celebrity magazine - it is just shy of a $1bn ad revenue and still growing!   Its web site is also still growing.  Started in 1974 and apparently a spin-off from Time magazine.  Mass media when successful is a formidable money making machine.

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