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DataSift offers the most powerful and sophisticated tools for extracting value from Social Data. The amount that Internet users are creating and sharing through Social Media is exploding. DataSift offers the best tools for collecting, filtering and analysing this data. Social Data is more complicated to process and analyse because it is unstructured. DataSift's platform has been built specifically to process large amounts of this unstructured data and derive value from it.

Could the Fear of Adopting Social Media Be Due to a Fear of Death?

Researchers Redraw the Map of Great Britain Using Social Networks

"With little fanfare, the State Department has abandoned America.gov - an ambitious digital project launched three years ago to promote Democracy abroad - and shifted its resources to social media projects."

"Clients are provided with tailored advice and practical tools for starting, scaling or sustaining their initiatives. Consultancies can cover areas such as creative brain storming, 'asset-mapping' and brand clarification, through to exploration of appropriate legal and business structures - including social enterprise - and how to creatively market and fundraise on a shoestring budget. Where relevant, clients are steered towards free tools, sent customisable documents and introduced to relevant individuals within the consultant's network."

David Armano's view of what's likely in 2010

interesting critique of social networking - and good articulation of alternative approach.

This seems to connect to that hyper-connected citizens trend José identified in the eGov report

More evidence that the future needs to slow down or we need to write faster.....

"With the deflation of the Social Media bubble, people have been asking us where the next bubble is going to be. One that is starting to froth is the "Makers" movement - ever since Chris Anderson's latest book, Makers*, the area has been rocketing up our Bubblewatch, overtaking Internet of Things and Quantified Self. The claims for this area are becoming truly hyperbolic"

"Memory allows for a kind of mental time travel, a way for us to picture not just the past but also a version of the future, according to a growing body of research. The studies suggest that the purpose of memory is far more extensive than simply helping us store and recall information about what has already happened. Researchers from University College London and Harvard University have made strides charting how memory helps us draw a mental sketch of someone's personality and imagine how that person might behave in a future social situation. They detailed their latest findings in work published in the journal Cerebral Cortex last week."

"Great expectations and a virtual world are among the megatrends changing the role of museums and arts organisations. The megatrends, identified by CSIRO trend analyst Stefan Hajkowicz, are a major shift in the cultural, economic, social, environmental and technological milieu that are expected to radically change the context of everything we do over the next 20 years. Some of the trends go to the very nature of why people come to museums, raising the possibility that museums, galleries and theatres could replace shops as the 'third place' where people congregate. Others will change the processes by which our organisations operate and the subjects on which we focus. Speaking at the Musuems Australia National Conference in Canberra on Shaping the Future of Museums, Dr Hajkowicz said while some changes were 'black swans' - phenomena never seen until a major change of environment - many were more like a 'kangaroo in the headlights', who sees the car coming but remains frozen. He gave the example of Eastman Kodak, which was involved in the development of the digital camera in 1975 but failed to change its business model from dependence on film and filed for bankruptcy in 2011."

"Hyper-connectivity - where people are constantly connected to social networks and streams of information - will have a transforming effect on how we see ourselves and others in the next decade, according to a new report published by the UK Government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir John Beddington."

"The 2012-2013 School of Design lecture series features a renowned group of transdisciplinary thinkers and practitioners who are working on complex social and environmental problems. This is a rare chance to hear thought leaders who are creating narratives that are shifting attitudes in our society."

Our role is to build citizenship by awakening people to the value that social responsibility creates for us - individually, in our businesses, in our communities, in our countries and in the world. To build a solid foundation for the future, we have to find the balance between what we take and what we give. If we believe this, we must remain critical of our actions and choices.

The Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks. OTI promotes affordable, universal, and ubiquitous communications networks through partnerships with communities, researchers, industry, and public interest groups and is committed to maximizing the potentials of innovative open technologies by studying their social and economic impacts - particularly for poor, rural, and other underserved constituencies. OTI provides in-depth, objective research, analysis, and findings for policy decision-makers and the general public. More Info

'Futures' (images of the future) are often devised at the level of a single university or at a national level for the overall higher education system. However, the bulk of trends and driving forces shaping universities' future are international in their nature and universities operate in broader socio-economic and S&T systems. Hence, futures devised in a multi-level structure would better assist decision-makers and stakeholders. This approach is a demanding one in several respects, but offers significant advantages: (i) the potential changes in the social, economic and S&T systems, in which universities are embedded, as well as their impacts on higher education can be considered systematically; (ii) the substantial diversity of higher education systems and individual universities can be taken into account; and (iii) the likely impacts of various policy options can also be analysed.

"Car owners invest huge amounts of time and money into an asset they barely use. Cars are driven only 8% of the time, while potential drivers walk past block after block of underutilized cars. We are here to connect the dots... to help people get around. Getaround is a social car sharing service. We enable car owners to safely rent out their underutilized cars to a community of trusted drivers. People in need of a car can rent one by the hour using the Getaround website or iPhone app. Imagine a world with fewer cars, without traffic jams, and with less pollution. We are a team of successful entrepreneurs, hackers, and business people passionate about using mobile technology to create sustainable transportation solutions. We want to empower people to travel more efficiently and cause a shift from personal to shared transport. "

It seems like we're playing video games every day. Every morning and evening on the subway, I see people swiping their phones, whether they're slinging a red bird into a pile of green pigs, guessing a friend's drawing, or any number of fun, frivolous, addictive activities. That's a lot of time spent on games, and a lot of cognitive energy. What if all of that brain power could be put toward social issues, like finding a way out of poverty?

"Australia's Federal Government announced the National Broadband Network (NBN) in 2009. NBN's current roll-out is scheduled for completion in 2021, with market forecasts estimating optical fibre overtaking DSL broadband connections in about 2015. This paper provides a timely contribution to more critical and expansive analysis of potential Australian internet futures. First, 'schools of thought' and current technological frames (Web 2.0, 'the cloud') for the internet and its possible futures are outlined, which provide perspectives on the emergence of the NBN. We then outline five generic images of the future which, as predetermined images, enable quick 'incasting' of alternative futures for a technology topic or related object of research: promised future, social/speculative bubble(s), unfolding disruption/chaos, unintended consequences, and co-existence/'cooption'. High-level application of the 'schools' and generic images to the NBN and Australia's potential internet futures, suggests policymakers and strategists currently consider too few perspectives."