With corporations, governments, newspapers and universities embracing blogs and Twitter feeds as key elements in their communication strategies, social media have finally come of age. Yet research shows that the landscape of social media use and impact is a complex one, quite unlike the simple depiction of ubiquitous use and democratisation of content production that was widely heralded with the advent of Blogger ten years ago. Organised by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) in collaboration with the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, this conference looked back at the evolution of blogs and other social media to give a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which such tools have or have not made a difference at the social, political or economic level. In addition, speakers were asked to look forwards to identify the trends and developments which will most likely shape our experience of these technologies in the near future.