A London skyline rescaled to reflect the social media presence of each major landmark was a fitting introduction to an event that championed social media analytics.

The W2O Group Social Intelligence Summit that took place in London last week was an opportunity for industry leaders to meet and reflect upon the role of measuring social media output.

The evening got off to an exciting start with Will Hayward from Buzzfeed talking enthusiastically about the evolution of the world’s most socially-savvy online platform. Hayward reminded the audience that social is now the primary means by which the public accesses news, beating search engines such as Google. Home pages also have less of an important role than before, people want to know what everyone else is talking about, he added.

The line-up for the evening, hosted in a room with a view of the London skyline, also included Jessica Federer from healthcare company Bayer, Martin Bryant from tech magazine The Next Web and Toby Potter from DataSift.

President of the W2O Group, Bob Pearson, said on the night, “One of the most important things we do in data is understand human beings so well that we can actually anticipate what they will do.”

The event closed with a panel discussion that covered a range of topics and created somewhat of a debate regarding data’s aptitude to either stunt or drive creativity. The issue of privacy in regards to data was also controversial, with most agreeing that consumers are willing to give up their personal data in exchange for the right services and incentives, but with some saying that people would be concerned if they saw just how much data social media sites have access to.