Keen off base with declaration Web 2.0 is dead

I read an excerpt from a presentation delivered by so-called tech guru Andrew Keen who declared, "Web 2.0 is dead". - More: Nextweb.com

Sensational statements like Web 2.0 is dead are just Tweet fodder in my opinion. Keen makes some good points about needing to introduce intimacy into web social environments but Keen would have you believe that we need to go (back) to platforms that moderate content for "professional" levels of contribution for money. Although this may play into the viewpoint of some institutions that disdain the quality of user-generated content, it fails to recognize the true value of unmoderated contributions. What makes Web 2.0 apps so liberating is that they remove the gatekeepers and let everyone have their say and share their experiences. Each individual is unique and brings a unique perspective to every discussion and brain storming session. If only self-styled "experts" are allowed to contribute, innovation and discovery will ultimately be stifled.

Just in my own relatively short life span (50+ years) I can point to revelations in cultural and scientific knowledge that were brought forward by contributors who were disdained by "experts" in the field.

Ray Kurzweil keeps prophesying that human and machine will eventually merge in the not too distant future. If we cannot retain our individuality we will become simply a subscript in a program written by somebody else.

Inspired by interview with Lawrence Lessig

A friend recently sent me a link to Charlie Rose's interview with Lawrence Lessig. Professor Lessig has written a new book entitled "Remix" about the new hybrid economy between the sharers of the Web 2.0 environment and online commerical interests. He points out how such collaboration can be used to end the dependence of politicians on big corporate lobbyists - much the same way that Barak Obama did in the generation of money for his campaign.

He spoke very admiringly of the value of such resources as Wikipedia and how the energy of sharing economies can be just what is needed to infuse enthusiasm into economic ventures in the online commercial environment. He pointed out, though, that commercial interests need to gain respect for the intelligence and creativity of those engaged in producing user-generated content. He mentioned that people like George Lucas, who created a remix studio with Star Wars images and clips but claims copyright to any material produced by visitors - is an outdated "Hollywood mogul" approach and does not show proper consideration to the collective intelligence of the online community. I, personally, find it ironic that someone who is so adamant about defending their own copyright is so willing to rip off someone else's.

Recently I was reading about YouTube's problems trying to negotiate partnerships with the major studios because the Hollywood studios were disdainful of YouTube's millions of "amateurs" and how their user-generated content is viewed as cluttering up the YouTube site. I had also just read about a new feature YouTube has added called video annotation that includes the ability to link videos into a unique narratives. So, I wrote to YouTube and suggested they approach the studios about offering a remix studio containing clips of Creative Commons noncommerical-licensed clips for use in production of mini-choose-your-own-adventure type videos or alternative trailers using the new video annotation feature. All derivatives would not then compete with the studios commercial offerings, because of the noncommercial rights provisions, but would provide hours of creative enjoyment to site visitors, who in turn would be exposed to studio advertising for much longer periods while working in the remix studio than they would be simply viewing clip after clip of content. This would turn the demographics of typical YouTube site visitors to a definite advantage to the studios and a vibrant alternative to passive viewing of full length features on Hulu.com. Besides, I know I would rather watch a full length feature streamed to a Netflix device connected to my big screen TV than slouched in my chair in front of my computer in my home office alone.

You will need some time to watch the interview with Mr. Lessig as its 38 minutes long, but I think it is worth every minute of it!

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9618

Finding a Gold Mine in Digital Ditties

I found the following article to be another interesting way people are using YouTube and amateur digital camera skills to launch a totally new career that didn't exist before Web 2.0.

Joel Moss Levinson always knew he had a calling in life. But it took cheap video cameras, YouTube and some desperate corporations to show him what it was.

Mr. Levinson’s skill is turning out homemade corporate commercials — what advertisers call a form of “user-generated content.” Companies, frantic to connect with younger consumers, sponsor contests seeking these commercials to find new ways to advertise their products, often attracting hundreds of entries and lots of attention.

So far, Mr. Levinson, a college dropout with dozens of failed jobs on his résumé, has won 11 contests — earning more than $200,000 in money and prizes. His success has made him into the digital age version of Evelyn Ryan, the woman from Defiance, Ohio, who supported her family by winning commercial jingle contests in the 1950s and ’60s.

While Mrs. Ryan’s talent was in writing, Mr. Levinson’s is in performing. He won $100,000 from Klondike after filming himself in the Arctic singing about Klondike bars. He won four months worth of free hotel stays from Best Western for a song he performed about his water cooler. When Little Penguin wine asked customers to film their best pickup line, Mr. Levinson submitted a video of his efforts to pick up a toy penguin, and won a trip to Australia.

He has won trips to Budapest, Buenos Aires and Copenhagen from Delta Air Lines; an iPod from the American National CattleWomen; and $6,000 from the Israel Project, an advocacy group, after honors in three separate categories — English, German and Russian — and he barely speaks German or Russian.

“It’s so great to have license to be an idiot,” he said.

It is especially great when idiocy is sponsored by corporations. Companies began soliciting these commercials a few years ago after noticing YouTube’s popularity, and wagered that campaigns created by customers might resonate with customers and turn into viral hits.

The initial commercials ran online only, but the fad has grown, and they now regularly run on television. Prizes have grown, too: this year, Doritos intends to run a user-generated commercial during the next Super Bowl, and offering $1 million to the winner.

Mr. Levinson’s gregariousness is an asset in the user-generated content world, as many of these contests are determined by voting. Mr. Levinson has a Facebook group entitled “Yes, Joel, I’ll vote for your newest stupid contest” and he uses Twitter, blogs, e-mail and text messages, asking acquaintances to vote. He even calls 24-hour customer service lines at night, when he thinks the representatives are bored, and asks them to vote for him.

Mr. Levinson is working on his Doritos entry for the Super Bowl but he has not forgotten his roots. He says he will enter any user-generated contest, no matter how small, and is at work on videos for Bush Brothers & Company beans, Home Depot, Contiki vacations, Krazy Glue and a telecommunications company in Kansas. But as a point of professional pride, he refuses to enter sweepstakes or any other game that depends on luck.

“A sweepstakes is like a lottery, right? Everyone’s equal,” he said. “With contests, I feel like I’m able to bring whatever skills I have to the table.” - More

From the corporate side of the contest I found this interesting post up at Click-Z about how to design an effective user-generated contest:

..."

Understand What Motivates Participation

Participants
typically fall into three categories: they want to win something, they
want to be recognized for their behavior or efforts, or they truly care
about something. "The more you can tap into those three things, the
more effective any online effort will be," Ghanem says.

Recognize People's Passions

People
tend to be more passionate about politics, sports, and fashions than
consumer brands and goods. "If I were to run a campaign to get
user-generated content about the war, lots of people would enter that
even if there wasn't a prize," Ghanem says. It's far more difficult to
get people excited about consumer brands, such as dishwashing
detergent. That's where prizes become an incentive for participation.

Pick the Best Format for the Demographic

Video
is better suited for a campaign targeting Gen Y skateboarding men. When
the History Channel targets baby boomer men, a contest that uses text
makes more sense, says Ghanem. A young man is more likely to pick up a
video camera and shoot a friend skateboarding, and a middle-aged
history buff is more likely watching television, reading books, or
writing a blog..."

I found the last observation very insightful. Although I have shot a few videos, I have done so with a still camera and don't even own a camcorder. I related much more to the history buff who reads and writes blogs (I have 15 other blogs besides this one!) If I was going to spend time creating a video I'd rather use shots from favorite films and put together a movie trailer remix to make a point!

Technorati Tags: YouTube, user-generated content, video, commercials, contest, revenue, income

Blog-for-pay websites create storm of controversy

"Does it exist to game Google search results and generate revenue through Google's AdWords advertising service by displaying contextual ads next to the copy? Or is it a new kind of media site, chock-full of original articles written mostly by average folk about everything from presidential pardons and karaoke to smoker's guilt and ventriloquism?

Add to the mix at Associated Content two prominent board members--Tim Armstrong, head of advertising for Google in North America, and venture capitalist Eric Hippeau, a managing partner at SoftBank Capital, who also happens to serve on Yahoo's board of directors--and you have a little company that's drawing outsized and quite possibly unwanted attention.

But while there are plenty of questions about this start-up, no one seems to be able to say it's actually doing anything wrong.

"This kind of service is not entirely clear-cut," said Danny Sullivan, editor of the Search Engine Land blog. "It's not a case that they are bad or should be banned, but they are embroiled in this kind of a debate."

Denver-based Associated Content was formed in 2004 and received $5.4 million in funding from SoftBank. It bills itself as a "user-driven information portal" and content provider, licensing content to other online publishers. The articles are "optimized for discovery and revenue generation," according to a news release on the company Web site. In other words, they're designed to be easy to find on Google through various search optimization techniques used by many publishers, not just people accused of gaming search results.

The company asks bloggers to write on the subjects of their choosing and accepts text, video and audio. Contributors can be paid based on the quality of the article and keyword optimization.

In most ways, Associated Content's methods seem fitting for any typical Web site--do your best to get play on Google search results and make money off its advertising. In fact, Associated Content is hardly the only company churning out content to match with Google ads. The success of Google's AdSense program, which matches ads with content on Web sites, and the growth of blogging applications have led to the emergence of pay-for-blogging companies that help match willing writers with sites that want content.

What separates legitimate content marketplaces from so-called "Made for AdSense" companies that generate content purely for marketing purposes is the intent of the company and the quality of the articles, said Rand Fishkin, co-founder and chief executive of search marketing firm SEOmoz.

That gets closer to the heart of the controversy. The dividing line between people who don't have a problem with Associated Content and those who do seems to come down to one of the most hard-to-define aspects of a Web site: quality. And quality, as most people know, is terribly difficult to define. As the 20th-century U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said in declining to venture too far into a definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it."

Well, since quality seems to be the bone of contention here, I decided to go up to Associated Content's website and have a look. I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed with either the topics or the writing quality.

Let's examine some of their "showcase" headlines:

Do Modern Prophets Exist?

Funniest Fortune Cookies Ever

The Awesomeness of Baseball
(awesomeness???)

Should Parents Let Kids Sip Beer?

John's Relevance in American Culture
(an article about the significance of the name "John" in American Culture)

I'm afraid I don't find any of these topics worthy of my reading time or a valuable use of the so-called author's time either. I'm not even sure what Google Ad Sense ads would be triggered by these inane topics.

There were at least two other headlines that had some potential:

DIY iPod Skins in Photoshop

As a technology person, I was interested enough to open this article. I was a little disappointed that the author was really talking about designing stickers for your iPod, not a software "skin" that changes the look of the iPod interface. But, he did mention the use of an overlay using the blend mode "Color Burn" in Photoshop. I have spent thousands of hours in Photoshop but had never used the Color Burn blend mode. I am going to try it out because I want to create a line of tote bags that feature my photography for sale up at Cafe Press and they provide downloadable templates to fit the base stock that will be used for the final product. Like the template example in the iPod skins article, I need to see the lines of the template through the image as I am sizing it. I'll give Associated Content at least 2 stars for this piece.

Does Internet Chatting Affect R Grammar?

This article would have been interesting if it had included an interview of an English professor expounding on the observed effects of internet chat "shorthand" in other communication formats. As it was, it was only a couple of paragraphs of internet chat gooblety-gook that you had to struggle to read followed by a couple of dictionary paragraphs about the definition of jargon. Then a couple of paragraphs giving the author's opinion about what it all means.

I was a bit surprised by one of his assumptions:

"A large motivation for the evolution and creation of what is referred to as "Netspeak" was to defeat IRC parsers that go through large amounts of logged IRC text searching for keywords. Everyone from the FBI to other hackers were constantly trying to monitor them, steal their secrets, or whatever hidden agenda they had. Introducing symbols, random capitalizations, and numbers into words was viewed as a way to defeat these individuals."

Quite honestly, I thought keyboard shortcuts were derived to ease the burden of people who were less than stellar typers!

I checked the author's education and he claims only "educated guesses". At least he's honest. Of course he's falling into the trap I used to discuss with my Creative Writing students. He is writing an opinion piece about a topic in which he has no particular expertise. If he had produced a quick reference list of online acronymns and their meaning, it probably would have been fine. But, his headline promises more - an analysis of the effect of extensive use of these chat shortcuts on English grammar as a whole. This promise requires at least some expert quotes.

Many academicians refuse to allow students to cite Wikipedia because it is user-produced content. But, many articles in Wikipedia are heavily annotated with extensive bibliographies. Associated Content makes Wikipedia look like the Encylopedia Britannica!