Weblog Consulting Register Login Subscribe to Free Influx Emails Join our Facebook Group Branding Street Cred Technology Lifestyle Style Entertainment Interviews Art InfluxTV Map Widgets RSS — All Subjects RSS — More Feeds

Search

Advanced Search

Contact Privacy Policy

how to make user-generated technology (37.835140748504415 , -122.5056266784668) We are now pretty much done with the whole idea of consumers making ads, at least in the mass sense of the big competitions and contests.

No doubt they are still going to happen and consumers are going to still go off on their own and create gems like the Apple iTouch spot and manage to get discovered.

What about taking user-generation and consumer involvement further?

2008 might see the start of the emergence of more direct user involvement and engagement in the creation, customization and use of products.

This week, all eyes will be focused on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where the big brands will be competing to see who has the biggest plasma.

In general, the world of consumer electronics has been pretty much one-way traffic; brands create flashy, appealing toys that redefine the experience, we go weak at the knees, buy the product, plug it in and use it for 12 months until the next thing appears.

We do nothing, but worship and use the device, but we can’t really do anything else with it.

At this year’s CES, an interesting little start-up called Bug Labs will be showcasing its wares.

Bug’s goal is to turn the industry on its head and offer up “Lego-like” components that people can configure and program to suit their needs.

Here’s how they describe their mission.

Bug Labs is a new kind of technology company, enabling a new generation of engineers to tap their creativity and build any type of device they want, without having to solder, learn solid-state electronics, or go to China. Bug Labs envisions a future where CE stands for Community Electronics, the term "mashups" applies equally to hardware as it does to Web services, and entrepreneurs can appeal to numerous markets by inventing "The Long Tail" of devices.

Bug gets extra points for getting The Long Tail into their mission statement.

The format is to provide a programmable mini Linux computer and modules that attach to it such as screens, GPS etc. The user can then configure the device anyway they want to.


While it’s clear not every Joe Six-Pack has the time, interest or inclination to program and develop their own PDA, some do.

For the big consumer electronics brands out there, there are a couple of things to take away from this.

1.    What can you do to provide a more personalized and customizable experience for your users?  Think User-Perfected, rather than User-Generated

2.    Shouldn’t things generally be more modular- wouldn’t we get less wastage that way?



Posted by Ed Cotton In those long past heady days of 2006, there was talk amongst some analysts and bloggers that the creators of user-generated content would be getting paid lots of real cash for their hard work and effort.

There was a school of thought that said some of the billions should and might be shared amongst those who created the content in the first place.

There was obviously something of a disparity between the billions of dollars paid for a brand like YouTube, compared to the zero revenue that the creators were getting.

Critics also pointed figures at Digg for the same reason.

Of course, everyone was barking up the wrong tree; there's a big difference between valuation/purchase price and advertising revenue.

Now, on some sites, like YouTube, creators are getting a small slice of advertising revenue.

However, for most creators of content and given that "most" now includes people who put photos up on a Facebook page, there's no financial reward, just the warm glow of social connectivity.

So is this new world one where participants get zero reward for their efforts?

It looks as if some companies are looking to change this and bring in merit badges and virtual/"fools gold".

Amazon has a newish site called Askville...

"Askville is a place where you can share and discuss knowledge with other people by asking and answering questions on any topic.  It’s a fun place to meet others with similar interests to you and a place where you can share what you know.    You can learn something new everyday or help and meet others using your knowledge.  Askville even helps you learn by giving you cool tools to help you find information online while you are answering questions.  It’s all about sharing—what you know and what you want to know—so go ahead and meet someone new today and Askville!"

Answer questions on Askville and you will be given Quest Gold, which Amazon is only too happy to state is currently worth even less than the US dollar.

"Except for any special limited time redemption offers that we may make available from time to time, Quest gold are not redeemable for anything at this moment.  Once Questville.com launches we hope to have exciting new ways to use your Quest gold.  Until then, keep on stocking up on your Quest gold!"

People are going to be submitting answers and contributing content for the benefit of some potentially worthless virtual currency, albeit with the very cool name of Quest Gold.

The important thing to consider here is that while the currency has no material value, it still works rather well as a merit system.

It's much better than nothing because people like points systems, they can compare and compete and get some sort of satisfaction from that.

It's likely that we will see more merit and point systems around the social networks this year.

It's now time to forget the dreams of wealth sharing from Web 2.0 and instead realize the best thing the majority of content creators can expect for their efforts, is some virtual currency and a merit badge.

Via GigOm




Posted by Ed Cotton The great hype machine rolls on with the user generated content phenomenon. It seems these days every consumer interaction with a corporation creates user generated content. The catch all phrase has now reached such ridiculous levels of overuse, it's rapdily becoming meaningless.

Contests have been going on since the dawn of marketing, but they are suddenly examples of user generated content!!

"APPLEBEE'S IS THE LATEST CASUAL-DINING chain to lend new meaning to "consumer-generated content."

The company is launching a program aligned to its relationship with The Food Network and celebrity chef Tyler Florence that gives consumers a chance to design a new menu item on the Applebee's menu. The effort follows a similar program by Wendy's, which is running a promotion that encourages people to design a burger from a broad range of ingredients and dangles $25,000."

Mediapost

It's now time to invent some new phrases.


Posted by Ed Cotton The New York Times reports today on some of the problems brands are having with user generated advertising, the biggest problem of all is getting great ideas.

“But these companies have found that inviting consumers to create their advertising is often more stressful, costly and time-consuming than just rolling up their sleeves and doing the work themselves. Many entries are mediocre, if not downright bad, and sifting through them requires full-time attention. And even the most well-known brands often spend millions of dollars upfront to get the word out to consumers.”

Don’t say we didn’t warn you about this.

Here are links to some of our posts about the perils and opportunities of user generated content.

8 Ways to Get Beyond the User Generated Ad


Post-Superbowl- Is it time to Re-think the Creative Department


“You” are Not Ad Agency of the Year


Consumer Generated Content isn’t Easy to Get


User Generated Content- Tools for Making the Crap, Great


3 Ways to Make User Generated Content Better


Welcome to the wild new world of Web 2.0.

Digg has been trying to stop its users from posting the code to break the encryption on HD-DVD discs for sometime. It made a decision to pull down posts which angered the community and all hell as broken loose.

Clearly the community is the brand and it has to listen or face the consequences of loosing them. It's interesting to see how fast this happened, how "violent" it was and how rapdily the brand responded. There are lots of lessons here, that we will attempt to explain and gather from other sources in the next couple of days.

Here is how in one day Digg explained and rectified its actions and used its blog as its mouthpiece.

1pm Yesterday

Hey all,

I just wanted to explain what some of you have been noticing around some stories that have been submitted to Digg on the HD DVD encryption key being cracked.

This has all come up in the past 24 hours, mostly connected to the HD-DVD hack that has been circulating online, having been posted to Digg as well as numerous other popular news and information websites. We’ve been notified by the owners of this intellectual property that they believe the posting of the encryption key infringes their intellectual property rights. In order to respect these rights and to comply with the law, we have removed postings of the key that have been brought to our attention.

Whether you agree or disagree with the policies of the intellectual property holders and consortiums, in order for Digg to survive, it must abide by the law. Digg’s Terms of Use, and the terms of use of most popular sites, are required by law to include policies against the infringement of intellectual property. This helps protect Digg from claims of infringement and being shut down due to the posting of infringing material by others.

Our goal is always to maintain a purely democratic system for the submission and sharing of information - and we want Digg to continue to be a great resource for finding the best content. However, in order for that to happen, we all need to work together to protect Digg from exposure to lawsuits that could very quickly shut us down.

Thanks for your understanding,

Jay

9pm Yesterday

Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
by Kevin Rose at 9pm, May 1st, 2007 in Digg Website
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on,

Kevin


Bill Tancer of Hitwise recently presented some interesting stats on participation levels on Web 2.0 sites, his research found that only .16% of all YouTube visits were to upload video and only 0.2% of Flickr visits were to upload photographs.

As we are in the “Participation Age” there seems to be a need to expand the number of participants. It’s questionable if brands are doing enough and by brands, we mean these Web 2 brands and creative brands in general; video cameras, computer brands, digital camera brands, printer brands, etc….

Obviously, the 1% rule is being played out, but think of the market potential if that 1% could be increased to 2%.

Brands in this space need to think about how they can encourage participation, this is part incentive and partly education. The education part is important and can obviously there need to be different streams for different segments; from the non-user, to the user who isn’t interested in sharing.

Clearly all brands that want to move into the Web 2 space and create community and conversation need to listen up, this stuff doesn’t just magically happen, it needs encouragement and education.

One interesting example is the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK, yesterday it launched a blogging service for its readers. For many, this could sound foolish, given the abundance of free blogging platforms, but this is smart as it’s going to attract their readers who trust DT more than the small blogging brands. In addition, in a challenging time for newspapers, there is a lot to gain by doing this and is reaching out and providing education and utility for a new group of participants.



Participation is the tangible offshoot of engagement, which has become the fashionable thing to try and measure these days.

It’s clear, if brands want thriving communities and strong brand relationships, they need do more than pay lip service to the notion of participation.

Is participation a new metric for engagement?