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Given Mark Zuckerberg's announcements at the Facebook F8 conference , one thing is certain: newspapers can no longer ignore Facebook's impact and reach. Whereas publishers continue to scapegoat Google for many of their current troubles, they should be equally, if not more, wary of Facebook. Whether they acknowledge it or not, newspapers are losing out to the social networking site on the fundamental fronts of community relevance, attention and information dissemination. Yet behind the perceived threat from Facebook, there is also a new opportunity for publications to achieve newfound audience relevance. Sponsor Guest author Chris Treadaway ( @ctreada ) is founder and CEO of Lasso , and author of the upcoming book Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day, an imprint of Sybex. He blogs at treadaway.typepad.com . Facebook's rise to dominance has been astounding. It is currently the most visited site in the United States, and boasts 400-plus million worldwide users. We've seen it go from a dorm room distraction to now being larger than the combined population of the United States and Mexico. With the social network claiming that roughly 70% of its user base is outside the United States, that means that there are at least 120 million Americans on Facebook today. Taken down to the local level, though, this means that Facebook might just already have more reach in the community than any other media outlet - especially local newspapers. With the unveiling of their Web-ubiquitous "Like" button and "social bar," as well as their Graph API, Facebook is now using its strengths to redefine how we interact with the Web in its entirety. So what does all of this mean for the publishing industry and for newspapers in particular? A few very important things: Facebook is now a legitimate threat to Google. It has accomplished this by changing the game from search discoverability to social context, which wasn't doable with 40 million users but is with 400-plus million users. Facebook is trying to become the first place people visit when logging into their computers every morning. The site that leads this battle carries the most online leverage, at least until it is knocked off the pedestal. Facebook is attempting to become pervasive across the entire Web, and without permission. Like it or not, site owners are going to have to deal with social media, but now in a much more pervasive way than ever before. Facebook is a competitor for the attention of local audiences. One minute spent on Facebook is a minute not spent on another Web property. Facebook will become a more interesting place as it aggregates data on what people are doing and how they are reacting to the Web as a whole, not just Facebook's network. So it isn't just necessary for media outlets to build a better Web sites anymore - they have to build engaging content that can appear on Facebook and drive value to their paper. It isn't impossible, but it has to be a priority. All of these things impact discoverability of a newspaper's content, who monetizes it and how. Those that succeed in becoming a viral Facebook content commodity will grow rapidly. Likewise, the decline of those news sources that fail to realize the necessary potential of Facebook will be swift. A deep and complete understanding of social media is necessary for publishers of any kind to modernize, grow and ultimately survive. It's becoming a necessary core competency, and fast. Yesterday, The Washington Post announced their "Network News" initiative, integrating Facebook into the paper's website. The Post's incorporation of activity from users' Facebook friends immediately creates a value of social relevance that trumps efforts like the New York Times' similar, though detrimentally insular, TimesPeople network . More importantly, however, are the possibilities such integration might provide for local newspapers. Relevance is a central theme to both the content shared on social networks and the community publication. Facebook offers those newspapers a readymade audience that is already connected to their desired local demographic. Local publications need to recognize the importance of tapping into Facebook's community, because, first and foremost, it is precisely where their readers are finding, sharing and discussing the types of pertinent content that the papers seek to champion. Newspapers no longer need traditional Web developers. Papers now need Facebook developers, experts who can partner with creative social-savvy businesspeople who know how to take advantage of the social graph. In the wake of Facebook's new features, it will not be long before newspaper and media executives are attacking and blaming Facebook for their problems in the way they do Google today. However, those publications that more progressively pursue the opportunities and value opened to them by Facebook's new tools will have a very different reaction. Photo by Michael Rogers . Discuss
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Why Newspapers Need to Heed Facebook, Now
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In our recent posts about Structured Data , we've emphasized that most of the current initiatives have been around uploading new data to the Web - whatever the format. The U.S. and U.K. governments have led the way with their 'open data' websites, but much of that data isn't 'linked' yet . In other words, it's online - but siloed. So how do we get to the next stage of the Semantic Web, linking disparate data sets together so that people can begin to use that data? The tipping point for the long-awaited Semantic Web may be when you can query a set of data about someone not too famous, and get a long list of structured results in return. I've decided to term this 'The Modigliani Test.' Sponsor Amedeo Modigliani is one of my favorite artists. He was moderately famous during the early 20th century and has something of a cult following nowadays. But he's not Da Vinci or Picasso famous. What I'd like to do in a Semantic Web is type the following query into a search engine and get back a large list of results: tell me the locations of all the original paintings of Modigliani. As of today, there's no place to type that query in and get a list of structured data . The closest I can find to doing that is the Artcyclopedia entry for Modigliani, which has a list of locations for Modigliani artworks. It's great that they have the location data listed on one web page. However it's not structured data, so we can't query it. There's also not much order to the data, we have no idea if this is a comprehensive list, it's not verified data, and so on. In summary, there's a lot of data on the Web about the location of original art works - but much of it is in traditional 'document' web pages. What we're after is a giant database of art works, which anybody can query and re-use. Here's an early, overly geeky view at what a Linked Data of painting locations would look like (hat-tip @dakoller ): The above is a far from comprehensive list of art works by Hieronymus Bosch (a search for Modigliani, by the way, brought up zero results). Plus of course we need a much more intuitive UI, so that non-geeks can use it too. What do you think, when will The Modigliani Test be passed on the Web? Discuss
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The Modigliani Test: The Semantic Web's Tipping Point
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Our selection of the 10 most popular YouTube videos about the Web is of course based on page views. But we also filtered the results for videos that are most true to explaining the big-picture version of what the Web is. The selection includes some of the most creative ways the growth of the Web has ever been explained. The fast paced growth of the Web too often keeps us focused on the latest and greatest, to the point were we lose perspective for how the Web has changed over time. So let's take a step back and get a more culturally-oriented overview of the Web. From a 1969 film about an internet that didn't have a name , to the most recent video on the Future of Publishing - as both nostalgia and analysis, we offer you these videos to help you reflect. Sponsor Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us 10,892,454 views Internet People! 3,316,195 views History of the Internet 1,944,479 views Social Media Revolution 1,734,985 views Internet Party: When Google's parents leave town... 841,295 views 1981 primitive Internet report on KRON 643,333 views The Internet in 1969 567,941 views Web 2.0 544,862 views The Internet Stars Are Viral 434,424 views The Future of Publishing 431,759 views Discuss
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Top 10 YouTube Videos About The Web
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While most of our top stories this week were about the iPad, our number one post was about how Google Street View is now, no joke, available in 3D. Go get your glasses and check it out. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010: Verizon, AT&T and Cisco are talking up the Internet of Things , Gowalla added real-time feeds, and augmented reality cartoons are going to save our kids. Read on for more. Sponsor Story of the Week: Google Street View in 3D Google Street View in 3D: More Than Just an April Fool's Joke You Are Not a Gadget: The Continuing Case Against Web 2.0 E-Books on the iPad: iBooks vs. Kindle for iPad iPad Problems Begin to Surface Digg Plans to Kill the DiggBar & Unban all Domains iPad: The First Real Family Computer More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services , augmented reality , native app vs. browser-based , commerce and marketing , mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: sales@readwriteweb.com . Mobile Web Why iAds Could be Bigger Than iPads Apple Announces iPhone OS 4 with Support for Multitasking? Farewell, Keyboard - Generation I Will Grow Up on Touchscreens More Mobile Web coverage Augmented Reality "Do Crew" Augmented Reality Cartoons Help Get Kids Off the Couch More Augmented Reality coverage Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report We're pleased to announce ReadWriteWeb's latest premium report, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Analysis of the Leaders, the Challenges and the Future . This report will help you develop a sophisticated understanding of Augmented Reality (AR), the mobile and Web technology that places data on top of a user's view of the physical world. The research included will help you decrease your AR development time to market by learning from the first wave of early adopters. AR offers a new marketing and product paradigm for a high impact, high value customer experience. More than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off last year and we expect to see many more in 2010. In this report, we profile key AR development companies, their campaigns as well as development lessons learned. For more information or to buy the report, visit here . Internet of Things Verizon, AT&T & Cisco Talk Up Internet of Things Our Network is Alive More Internet of Things coverage Real-Time Web Gowalla Adds Real-time Feeds and Activity Streams For Maximum Mashup Action Twitter's Translation Problem More Real-Time Web coverage . Don't miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb's report, The Real-Time Web and its Future . Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app . As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes . ReadWriteStart Our channel ReadWriteStart , sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark , is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. Internet of Things: Opportunities For Entrepreneurs Why You Need to Be Developing for the iPad Right Now NYC Startup Job Fair: How Graduates Can Get a Great Job at a Startup ReadWriteEnterprise Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' and using social software inside organizations. Is the iPhone Now as Enterprise Ready as the Android? Google Executive Says Google Buzz Coming Soon to the Enterprise ReadWriteCloud Our channel ReadWriteCloud , sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing. How Cloud Computing Can Help A Small Business Get Out of the Recession Does the iPad App Give Rackspace An Advantage? This Tweet is Priority 1: SalesForce.com's Chatter is Transactional Social Media That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone. Discuss
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Weekly Wrap-up: 3D Street View, the Case Against Web 2.0, iPad Problems, And More...
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Yesterday we summarized some of the main developments in the Linked Data world over the past year. Linked Data is a W3C-backed movement that is all about connecting data sets across the Web. It can be viewed as a subset of the wider Semantic Web movement, which is about adding meaning to the Web. However, there is some confusion in the Semantic Web community about the crossover . To add to the confusion, there is a term called 'Open Data' that is being bandied around too. This commonly describes data that has been uploaded to the Web and is accessible to all, but isn't necessarily "linked" to other data sets. So what's the beef with all of these terms? In this post we seek clarity! Sponsor The Difference Between Open Data and Linked Data In the discussion over yesterday's post, a few people tweeted that the U.K. government's public data website Data.gov.uk is mostly populated with 'Open Data' and not 'Linked Data.' But what does that mean? It means that much of the data on the site is available to the public, but it doesn't link to other data sources on the Web. It could be data that has been uploaded in CSV format (i.e. spreadsheet data), which Sir Tim Berners-Lee said in an interview with me last year is a common occurrence with government departments. Or it could be data in another non-Web format. Screen from a Tim Berners-Lee presentation on Linked Data , circa 2008 Titti Cimmino put it nicely : Open Data is simply 'data on the web,' whereas Linked Data is a 'web of data.' However, the idea of Open Data is to turn it into Linked Data. As John S. Erickson pointed out , the first priority of Data.gov.uk (and its U.S. counterpart) is to publish lots of Open Data. The next step is to work towards linking it all up. This is already starting to happen. Answering a question I posed on Twitter, Kingsley Idehen confirmed that Data.gov.uk is currently a combination of Open Data and Linked Data. Linked Data and The Semantic Web So may we then suggest that the idea of Linked Data is to turn it into a Semantic Web? Or are they the same thing already? Lorna Campbell from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland tackled those and other questions in an excellent post earlier this month. She started by warning of the potential for another "holy war" about terminology. I won't delve into that in this post, however this excerpt from Campbell's post gives you a flavor of the terminology angst: "Some argue that RDF is integral to Linked Data, other suggest that while it may be desirable, use of RDF is optional rather than mandatory. Some reserve the capitalized term Linked Data for data that is based on RDF and SPARQL, preferring lower case "linked data", or "linkable data", for data that uses other technologies." Even Wikipedia can't define Semantic Web... Campbell quotes from a number of other articles, in trying to come to a conclusion about how Linked Data and the Semantic Web relate. Perhaps the best definition she found was this one by Paul Walk : data can be open , while not being linked data can be linked , while not being open data which is both open and linked is increasingly viable the Semantic Web can only function with data which is both open and linked " Why This Matters So there you have it, Linked Data is NOT the same as the Semantic Web. It's also not necessarily open, in other words accessible to developers. Whatever the definitions, the key points about all of Open Data, Linked Data and the Semantic Web, are: data is being uploaded to the Web that wasn't online before (e.g. much of the data on Data.gov.uk). structure is being added to the data using Linked Data and/or Semantic Web technologies. The bottom line is that the more data we have on the Web that is linked and has defined meaning, the smarter our web applications will be. This is why these activities are so exciting, despite the terminology confusion! Image credit: Semantic Web Rubik's Cube, dullhunk Discuss
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It's All Semantics: Open Data, Linked Data & The Semantic Web
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