I read in the Guardian yesterday that the World Economic Forum, held in Davos in January/February every year, is really picking up in terms of outreach to users through social media. In advance of the meeting next month, they are inviting web users to start discussing important global issues.
They are going to open their YouTube channel for the second year, and one carefully selected citizen reporter who uploads a relevant video will be give the chance to attend the conference, travel and expenses fully paid. The World Economic Forum will also disseminate and encourage discussion during the event through Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr and an OpenForum wiki, with press conferences scheduled to be broadcast through Mogulus and Qik. I didn’t even know they had a YouTube Channel – it looks like it is along the lines of TED, arguably one of the best video-sharing conference sites that currently exist. It looks like the WEF is on to something important in terms of sharing and crowdsourcing with these initiatives – stay tuned!