Hello, and welcome to another “Week in Social Media.”
Although 2011 has just started, 2010 is still fresh in our minds, so I will use the chance to concentrate on the past, the present and the future. As reported in my last post, much happened during the past year, especially on the Web and in social media.
Let’s take a look at the Internet itself first. Have you any idea how many websites were added in 2010? Or how many people used [...]

“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.” —Walt Disney (1901-1966)
With advertising, people learn what a person, a brand, a service or a product is and has to offer. I don’t think there is any better way to teach, raise awareness and sales than entertaining. Beyond direct marketing, print and online ads, commercials or product placements, one of the best ways to reach your audience and engage it on the [...]

As the dust settles over the debate about whether social media is indeed worth all the hype, the medical fraternity has been slowly pointing the needle (pun intended) towards a yes.
The lure of social media notwithstanding, the medical community has been apprehensive about using it. Lack of clear knowledge of usage and value, skeptical response and industry regulations have combined to turn social media into a Pandora’s Box in the minds of many who have taken the Hippocratic Oath.
Times have [...]

Walking into the Time Warner Center for Adweek’s Social Media Strategies Conference recently (the conference was held Oct. 13-14) was a lot like entering a professional sporting event. I put my bag through a metal detector, got my ticket and then entered a room with several large projection screens—though instead of jumbotrons displaying fans in the stadium, we were seeing live streams of tweets.
And, really, it was fitting, considering that this was the Olympics of social media, with key [...]

Ladies’ Might
It was mostly men who got the U.S. into this financial mess (sorry, fellas!), so it makes sense that women have been called in to oversee the fix

Lamentably, it’s true that the financial system that has put so many Americans in tight spots was created—and mostly run—by people of the, um, male persuasion. Now women have been tasked with captaining the recovery, including Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the FDIC; Mary Schapiro, chairwoman of the SEC; and Elizabeth Warren, [...]

“It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details.” –Henri Poincare (French mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher of science, 1854-1912)
As announced last week, Facebook has now reached 500 millions users. If it were a country, it would be the third largest, behind China and India. Beyond [...]

Being new to trendspotting, I felt a little out of place at this year’s WorldFuture 2010 conference, put on by the World Future Society—as if I was the only person not developing some type of artificially intelligent machine in my basement. But I soon realized that there is a lot to learn and understand now that could help us gain a better grasp on what will happen in the years to come.
Climate Change
Two seminars were [...]

“Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.” – Denis Diderot (French philosopher, 1713-1784)
Among all social media platforms, Facebook is clearly the one that currently leads the game. Despite privacy concerns, the popularity of Mark Zuckerberg’s creation is constantly growing, with a movie about him and the beginnings of Facebook coming up next October. Let’s first take [...]

At the World Futurist Convention this year in Boston, one of my favorite speeches touched on topics from artificial intelligence to Asian men and pillow lovers. You can read more about that awesome presentation here, or read Part 1 of my report on the convention, about sustainable, green technologies.
“What do you think the first conscious machine would say to us?” was how Dr. Stephen Thaler began his speech on thalamocortical algorithms in space. Dr. Thaler has worked more than 30 [...]

Students and enthusiasts attending the World Futurist Convention this year in Boston were at once shocked, overwhelmed and intrigued. Diverse teachers from all over gave lectures on subjects with only one thing in common: the future. Being one of the youngest people attending, I was personally invested in how the older generations predict the globe will unravel for my generation and that of my 14-year-old brother. To my amusement, the world is “supposed” to be extremely well off and advanced in [...]