It's 2005 - do you know where your content is?

"Happy New Year" just seems a bit too chipper, considering millions of the living in the tsunami-affected regions of the world are miserable physically and mentally beyond the comprehension of most of us. I'll repeat myself: please donate whatever money you can. You don't want to be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present tonight.

So, here we are back, in a new year. I've been reading lots of summaries of 2004 and musings for 2005 on various blogs.

John Blossom at Shore Communications has a piece called Models for Success: 2005 Ushers in an Era of Major Shifts in Content Business Models as well as a view in the Crystal Ball Redux: Looking Back on Shore's 2004 Forecast - and Peeking at 2005

The Write News reports on the Online Publishers Association announcement that "consumer spending for online content in the U.S. grew to $853 million in the first half of 2004, an increase of 14 percent over the same period last year." This tracks with the only place shopping did well over the holidays--online.

They also have an entire section called The Editorial Dead Zone that reports on the shutterings and staff reductions in media, bookselling and publishing communities. Don't go there if your unrealized dream is to be a reporter or the publisher of a magazine.

Paula Hahn at Information Today is Wrapping Up 2004; Looking Forward.

And along with a zillion other bloggers, I note the Pew Internet & American Life report The State of Blogging. As well, Outsell Inc has released its 2005 predictions...I haven't read this yet but the previous ones have been most interesting. This one is called Outlook 2005: Power Play In The Information Industry.

You'll need to wander around a bit to read all the bits associated with Jay Rosen's Top Ten Ideas for 2004 at Pressthink. Not all the ideas are on the main page so look for the links. Number 6 is "Content Will be More Important than its Container" Hey, where've I heard that before?

And somehow I missed this at the beginning of December...RageBoy, aka Chris Locke, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, was hired by HighBeam Research to blog. The RageBoy blog is still here and The ChiefBloggingOfficer is here. I've landed you on the "About" page because I want you to scroll down and look at what may or may not be a "real" poster. It's great though: For Greater Knowledge on More Subjects, Use Your Library Often!

And from a gaggle of biz publications: Fortune published its 10 Tech Trends, Business 2.0 The 5 Lessons of 2004, Red Herring, Top Ten Trends for 2005 and Fast Company Top Trends for 2005.

And not a trend summary, but 'in theme' with the upcoming OCLC Symposium, Jenny "The Shifted Librarian" Levine talks about her son and daughter's interests (different) in social gaming, Internet Use Goes Social at Our House.

And if the deluge of trend watching and musing is weighing you down, along with all the news and images from sad places, spend a few minutes with this WMD (weapon of mass distraction), peacefully virtually snipping paper into lovely snowflakes.

As my dad said in a New Year's email: Lang may yer lum reek.