social media

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.
 

The State of Social 2018 Report: Your Guide to Latest Social Media Marketing Research [New Data]
Buffer
What’s in store for the social media industry in 2018? The way consumers use social media channels is constantly evolving and as marketers and entrepreneurs, we need to adapt to these changes. To better understand these changes, plus what’s ahead for 2018 and beyond we teamed up with Social Media Week to collect data from over 1,700 marketers and create the State of Social Media 2018 report. The report shows us how marketers, from businesses of all sizes, are approaching social media marketing.
 
World Bank’s ‘Global Dataset’ Offers New Way for Comparing Countries’ Educational Performance
Market Brief Ed Week
For years, efforts to explore and compare the educational performance of impoverished countries–and by implication, their economic potential–have been stymied by a lack of useful data. An ambitious new analysis by the World Bank aims to change that. A “global dataset” unveiled by the international development organization uses statistical methods to put the results of much-publicized international tests like the PISA and TIMSS–which many poor nations do not take part in–on a comparable scale as regional exams commonly used by developing countries. The result is a new method for comparing the test performance of rich and poor nations that World Bank researchers say hasn’t been accomplished before.
 

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.

 
The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data
The Economist
A NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital advertising in America last year. Such dominance has prompted calls for the tech giants to be broken up, as Standard Oil was in the early 20th century. This newspaper has argued against such drastic action in the past. Size alone is not a crime.
 
Pathways for Peace : Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflicts
World Bank/United Nations
The resurgence of violent conflict in recent years has caused immense human suffering, at enormous social and economic cost. Violent conflicts today have become complex and protracted, involving more non-state groups and regional and international actors, often linked to global challenges from climate change to transnational organized crime. It is increasingly recognized as an obstacle to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. This has given impetus for policy makers at all levels – from local to global – to focus on preventing violent conflict more effectively. Grounded in a shared commitment to this agenda, Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict is a joint United Nations and World Bank study that looks at how development processes can better interact with diplomacy and mediation, security and other tools to prevent conflict from becoming violent.