Who's Who: The very first social networking?
As profiles are multiplying on Facebook, Linkedin and others like Viadeo and, with them, there is the feeling that personal and professional circles are dangerously merging, creating a world where we can be "labelled" without our consent and where our image, that we thought we had under control, all of a sudden, escapes us... In the meantime, Who's Who is still on target today, continuing its progression. In fact, drawing up a certain image of the French elite, today this institution is loudly and strongly evoking its exceptional track record with a total of 40 editions so far, all while surfing on version 2.0 and not inconspicuously either.
An institution
Today Who’s Who has 22,000 entries. Men and women, emerging talents as well as more established profiles, entrepreneurs, politicians, high ranking civil servants, artists, journalists, athletes, association activists, etc.: a Prévert-like inventory, without a doubt, a key to understanding French society today, without a doubt complementary to our national Francoscopie. Because, Who's Who, is perhaps above all a succession of little "human comedies" more or less colourful, since Jean Vilar whose biography emphasizes his "misogynous and misanthropic" inclinations, Curnonski, voted Prince of Gastronomes, confessed no less than "23 car accidents, 2 wars, 1 shipwreck... " or still yet the cartoonist Franck Margerin, who proudly revealed there his passionate collection of some 400 insecticide sprays...! A series of destinies hand-picked by a jury whose members, for all intents and purposes, are ruthless, anonymous, volunteers and regularly renewed. The result: a social network that has already been in existence for 50 years, which could have collapsed, squeezed out by the all mighty power of the social network of the World Wide Web and that yet continues to attract because of its specificity: "rigorous, exact and objective" information. That says it all.
1140 new entries, and what about me, and me, and me?
It is not surprising that the "Red Bible" could not remain forever limited to its 4 kilos of paper... After it embraced the Internet at the beginning of 2000, Who's Who, without however cashing in on its precious database, then finally decided to capitalize on its B to B business, taking also the opportunity to offer a new version of its website, RSS flow, a mobile portal, an English version and the unavoidable newsletter. On the information side, 17,000 biographies continue to be carefully updated each year, while 1140 new entries are to appear in the 2009 edition, from Cédric Klapisch to Goncourt Gilles Leroy passing by Dominique Sopo (President of SOS Racisme) or still yet Carlos-Antonio Rosillo (Founder and President of Bell&Ross). A good vintage, indeed!
Today Who’s Who has 22,000 entries. Men and women, emerging talents as well as more established profiles, entrepreneurs, politicians, high ranking civil servants, artists, journalists, athletes, association activists, etc.: a Prévert-like inventory, without a doubt, a key to understanding French society today, without a doubt complementary to our national Francoscopie. Because, Who's Who, is perhaps above all a succession of little "human comedies" more or less colourful, since Jean Vilar whose biography emphasizes his "misogynous and misanthropic" inclinations, Curnonski, voted Prince of Gastronomes, confessed no less than "23 car accidents, 2 wars, 1 shipwreck... " or still yet the cartoonist Franck Margerin, who proudly revealed there his passionate collection of some 400 insecticide sprays...! A series of destinies hand-picked by a jury whose members, for all intents and purposes, are ruthless, anonymous, volunteers and regularly renewed. The result: a social network that has already been in existence for 50 years, which could have collapsed, squeezed out by the all mighty power of the social network of the World Wide Web and that yet continues to attract because of its specificity: "rigorous, exact and objective" information. That says it all.
1140 new entries, and what about me, and me, and me?
It is not surprising that the "Red Bible" could not remain forever limited to its 4 kilos of paper... After it embraced the Internet at the beginning of 2000, Who's Who, without however cashing in on its precious database, then finally decided to capitalize on its B to B business, taking also the opportunity to offer a new version of its website, RSS flow, a mobile portal, an English version and the unavoidable newsletter. On the information side, 17,000 biographies continue to be carefully updated each year, while 1140 new entries are to appear in the 2009 edition, from Cédric Klapisch to Goncourt Gilles Leroy passing by Dominique Sopo (President of SOS Racisme) or still yet Carlos-Antonio Rosillo (Founder and President of Bell&Ross). A good vintage, indeed!
Avril 2009
