Traditional media is over. The internet reigns. And in the attention economy, influencers are royalty. But who are they … and how do you become one?

Break the Internet takes a deep dive into the influencer industry, tracing its evolution from blogging and legacy social media such as Tumblr to today’s world in which YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok dominate. Surveying the new media landscape that the rise of online celebrity has created, it is an insider account of a trend which is set to dominate our future — experts estimate that the economy of influence will be valued at $24bn globally by 2025.

Olivia Yallop enrols in an influencer bootcamp, goes undercover at a fan meetup, and shadows online vloggers, Instagrammers, and content creators to understand how online personas are built, uncovering what it is really like to live a branded life and trade in a ‘social stock market’. From mumfluencers and activists to governments and investors, everyone wants to build their online influence. But how do you stay authentic in a system designed to commodify identity? Break the Internet examines both the dangers and the transformative potential of online culture.

Offering the first scholarly analysis of the economic nature of blockchains and the formation of the blockchain economy, this timely book explores the future of global capitalism. Applying the institutional economics of Ronald Coase and Oliver Williamson, the authors highlight how blockchains are poised to reshape the nature of firms, governments, markets and civil society. Chapters apply basic economic principles to explore blockchains and distributed ledger technologies through the framework of institutional economics. The book suggests ways in which cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin may develop further in the future, bringing us back to a barter economy which removes the need for a third person in economic transactions. Outlining a ledger-centric view of the economy, the authors explore how blockchains and dehierarchalisation will reduce the demand for government regulation. Institutional economists and scholars will greatly appreciate the thorough analysis of the development of institutional cryptoeconomics and insight into the future of blockchains that this book offers. Computer and technology scientists will also find this book to be a valuable read, as well as those working specifically in the blockchain industry.

This timely book is an innovative look at how blockchain technology will transform the structure of social and economic life. The security of blockchain supports the provision and maintenance of reliable databases and the creation of rule-based governance protocols. Leading contributors expertly review the impact of blockchain on existing structures of law, monetary systems, supply chains and business organizations. Using economic and institutional theory, the book presents a vision for understanding the future development of blockchain technology and outlines the likely path of transformation that blockchain will drive in industry, supply chains and firms. Furthermore, it answers key questions such as: will Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency become the money of the future? How has blockchain already begun transforming economic activity? How can we evaluate the likely trajectory of technological development and application? This informative book is an excellent resource for academics or professionals interested in a theoretically sound perspective on blockchain. Written in an accessible prose, it provides an introduction for non-experts looking to learn more about the wide-ranging implications of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

As advances in disruptive technologies transform politics and increase the velocity of information and policy flows worldwide, the public is being confronted with changes that move faster than they can comprehend. There is an urgent need to analyze and communicate the ethical issues of these advancements. In a perpetually updating digital world, data is becoming the dominant basis for reality. This new world demands a new approach because traditional methods are not fit for a non-physical space like the internet. Applied Ethics in a Digital World provides an analysis of the ethical questions raised by modern science, technological advancements, and the fourth industrial revolution and explores how to harness the speed, accuracy, and power of emerging technologies in policy research and public engagement to help leaders, policymakers, and the public understand the impact that these technologies will have on economies, legal and political systems, and the way of life. Covering topics such as artificial intelligence (AI) ethics, digital equity, and translational ethics, this book is a dynamic resource for policymakers, civil society, CEOs, ethicists, technologists, security advisors, sociologists, cyber behavior specialists, criminologists, data scientists, global governments, students, researchers, professors, academicians, and professionals.

An Economist Best Book of the Year A Financial Times Best Book of the Year A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year A ProMarket Best Political Economy Book of the Year One of The Week's Ten Best Business Books of the Year A cutting-edge look at how accelerating financial change, from the end of cash to the rise of cryptocurrencies, will transform economies for better and worse. We think we've seen financial innovation. We bank from laptops and buy coffee with the wave of a phone. But these are minor miracles compared with the dizzying experiments now underway around the globe, as businesses and governments alike embrace the possibilities of new financial technologies. As Eswar Prasad explains, the world of finance is at the threshold of major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and indeed all of us. The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live. Above all, Prasad foresees the end of physical cash. The driving force won't be phones or credit cards but rather central banks, spurred by the emergence of cryptocurrencies to develop their own, more stable digital currencies. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies themselves will evolve unpredictably as global corporations like Facebook and Amazon join the game. The changes will be accompanied by snowballing innovations that are reshaping finance and have already begun to revolutionize how we invest, trade, insure, and manage risk. Prasad shows how these and other changes will redefine the very concept of money, unbundling its traditional functions as a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value. The promise lies in greater efficiency and flexibility, increased sensitivity to the needs of diverse consumers, and improved market access for the unbanked. The risk is instability, lack of accountability, and erosion of privacy. A lucid, visionary work, The Future of Money shows how to maximize the best and guard against the worst of what is to come.

Authored by London-based Researcher from Imperial, Exponential Progress takes readers on a journey through over seven decades of progress, as technology has shaped and controlled everything from banking and business to education, medicine, and the very basis of the human genome. It is a must read for anyone look to learn about fascinating emerging technologies that will disrupt our lives over the next ten years. Humanity is progressing towards a world that will be dominated by the end-results the scientific inventions that will evolve over the next decade. Technological progress has accelerated over the past decade - it was slow and buggy at the beginning, but the rate of improvement is now exponential. The growth is accelerating faster than we could have ever imagined. From a business perspective, these ground-breaking technologies are expected to be the best investments for the next decade. That is why investors and entrepreneurs are tenacious to grow rapidly. But where did it all start? How far have we come in the past 70 years since we developed the first digital computer? Thousands of innovators are in the process of developing the building blocks of these technologies, that will radically grow over the next decade and potentially dominate the century. But now, civilisation has reached a point when this progress cannot be controlled. The author cuts to the core of what humanity has achieved since the invention of the digital computer, where the new jaw-dropping technological innovation will come from, and where the line is drawn between fact and fad. This nonfiction meticulously looks back at the history, analyse current progress and what the researchers have achieved until now. The author attempts to comprehend the need for advancement and in parallel, the potential over the next decade, and reflecting on the necessity of control. If you are interested in new technologies, this will be one of the best books to read. Prepared to be mind-blown with the ideas you are going to find. Farabi, the author of Exponential Progress, is the Head of Research at IntelXSys(TM) and working as one of the Research Experience Leads for Clinical Research and Innovation (CRI) module at the Imperial College London. He has worked with over 100 companies as a technology consultant and spoken at a number of international conferences around the world.

Spiritual masters through the ages have devised methods different than those of science for investigating the great mystery of nature by, for example, immersing themselves in it, making use of silence, stillness, and solitude. The scientific and spiritual quests have been the two great quests of humanity, but somehow a feeling has developed that science is antagonistic to spirituality. Since the whole of reality is built up of both matter and consciousness, why should the quest for the understanding of order in the external world be antagonistic to the quest for the understanding of order in the inner world of our consciousness? Science and Spirituality for a Sustainable World brings together theories, methodologies, new ideas, experiences, and applications emphasizing the importance of both spirituality and skill for leadership and sustainable management, sensitizing leaders and management practitioners toward the spirituality-skill paradigm, skill-based leadership, and highlighting the role of spiritual values for environmental sustainability. Featuring a wide range of topics that focus on the relationship between spirituality and science such as spiritual education, management practices, and traditional wisdom, this book is essential for researchers, academicians, administrators, managers, professionals, policymakers, and students.