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Posts Tagged “
loser-generated content
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Dilbert buys into Web 2.0, now fully buzzword compliant
Cube-dwelling funny pages favorite "Dilbert" from Scott Adams has a redesigned website, sporting the now-ubiquitous "beta" label, offering widgets and buying into the user-generated content fad — you can now create "mashups" and work out your own corporate-minion frustrations within the confines of speech bubbles. [CNET]
the chart
loser-generated content
Steve Chen says reviewing graphic clips is "impossible task"
YouTube cofounder Steve Chen worries about graphic rape clips on YouTube. But not enough to do something about it, because he thinks it is important for uploaded videos to be available for immediate viewing. Also, given that 10 hours of content is uploaded every minute, it would be impossible to screen each video before displaying it on the site. Chen told the Sydney Morning Herald that YouTube has to "rely on the millions of eyeballs from the community rather than the hundreds that we have [internally] on the site." YouTube is also developing a technology to prevent a clip which was deleted from being uploaded again. The TV and movie studios whose clips helped give Chen's YouTube a $1.65 billion payday don't have a problem hiring people to review content on the site. Stopping depictions of violence against women, though? Leave it to the servers. Google has plenty of them. (Photo by ideali)
geek love
Crowdsourcing experiment seeks to dictate Leah Culver's love life
We asked which man most deserves Pownce founder Leah Culver's attentions: Googler Andy Smith or Flickr's Cal Henderson? In a late rally, Smith advocates won out. His 48.4 percent of the vote displaced the early leader, none-of-the-above option "cupcakes to face for both," at 43.5 percent. Now a pair of tipsters confirm Culver has, in fact, selected a new man. Has she heeded the wisdom of the crowd? More »
loser-generated content
Om Malik surrenders to his commenters
"I have often said that the real value of blogs lies in the intelligence embedded in the comments." — Om Malik, on blog-comments software maker Disqus's new round of venture capital. True enough for GigaOm, I suppose. [GigaOm]
loser-generated content
Where would you put the Wikipedia logo?
With ICQ lending its name to an Israeli toothpaste manufacturer and Google trucking branded ice cream bars to its Mountain View headquarters, no wonder Jimmy Wales is thinking about how Wikipedia can cash in on brand licensing. The only problem: Wales's marketing ideas are as dull as his sexual fantasies. Board games? Discovery Channel specials? Boring! More »
loser-generated content
Flickr to video users: You're a bunch of amateurs
Almost every digital camera captures both pictures and movies. This reality has seemed lost on Flickr for four years. Cofounder Stewart Butterfield reportedly told attendees at a fourth-birthday party last night that Flickr, now owned by Yahoo, will introduce video uploads next month. At this point, Yahoo might as well launch the service on April 1 — the delay has become that much of a joke. Yahoo Video has already relaunched, with its own movie-upload features. So why bother? More »
loser-generated content
Dumb as bricks, perhaps, but still not bricks
People who talk about 'building community' should go be architects. Because people are not bricks.— Pixish cofounder Derek Powazek, on the art of cajoling users to contribute content, "The Weird Turn Pro: Crowdsourcing for Creatives," SXSW Interactive 2008
loser-generated content
Al Gore's Current files for $100 million IPO
So much for the notion of cheap, user-generated content. Current Media, the operator of the Current TV cable channel and Current.com, hopes to raise $100 million in an IPO. Last year, the company, cofounded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, had revenues of $63.8 million and lost $17.1 million. Current's website isn't generating significant advertising, and the company makes most of its money in an old-fashioned way: fees from cable providers. The company is desperately short on cash; as of December 31, it had $2.2 million, and this month, it opened up a $50 million line of credit from JPMorgan Chase, in exchange for the right to take the company public. But the most puzzling thing in the prospectus is this: Current spent $31.4 million on programming and production in 2007. Isn't it supposed to run entirely on submissions from viewers?
loser-generated content
Does MTV channel's failure signal trouble for Current?
Barely a year after its launch, MTV is shutting down Flux TV. The U.K. channel was the network's attempt to bring social media to the telly. Users determined which music videos the channel would broadcast, as well as upload their own media. But alas, the audience, used to sitting back and being fed entertainment, didn't care to lean forward. Which brings us to Current, the San Francisco-based cable channel founded by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore. More »
great moments in journalism
Self-important white folks demand you blog about Kenya
Yes, there's some truly bad man's-inhumanity-to-man stuff going down in Kenya. No, Robert Scoble and his echo chamber are not morally obliged to figure out some tech angle and post about it. The fallacy made by political correctards is that if Robert Scoble doesn't blog about something, he either doesn't know or doesn't care about it and neither do his readers. More »
loser-generated content
Library of Congress tags Flickr users to tag archives
The Library of Congress has teamed with Flickr to make its vast catalog of images available on the Web, starting with 3,000 photographs with no known copyright holders. The goal of the project is to provide exposure to these rarely seen images and to harness the Flickr community to compile missing data — like the photographer, subject, and copyright holder — for free. As far as partnerships go, Flickr seems to be the winner. They gain access to thousands of beautiful and historic photographs. Having the Library of Congress on board may even encourage other public institutions to follow suit and join their tagging project, "The Commons." The Library of Congress will likely get what they paid for: inane comments and simplistic tags rather than the useful metadata they seek.
paul boutin
Wikipedia wins, I lose big bet on the news
Blogger Rogers Cadenhead doesn't get to declare the official winner of the bet between the Dave Winer and the New York Times. Google — the company, not the search engine — will call a winner, and the Long Now Foundation, which holds the cash in the pot, will decide the issue. I know because I set this all up in 2001, by talking to Google PR chief David Krane before approaching Winer and the Times to arrange a wager on whether blogs or the paper of record would cover the big stories of this year better. The bet ran in Wired's Long Bets issue. More »
The New York Times is launching a partnership with startup PurpleStates.tv. Videos filmed by PurpleStates' "citizen journalists" will run on the Op-Ed page of NYTimes.com. [Beet.tv]
online video
It's not that people object to Google making money on YouTube, really. They just want their cut. Yesterday, YouTube opened a program which pays a portion of ad revenue to content creators to all comers. Well, all comers from the U.S. and Canada whom YouTube deems acceptable, that is. Rather than specifying who it will accept, YouTube suggests you keep applying if you've been rejected. That worked so well with Susie in the 8th grade, after all. More »
YouTube starts paying losers for their clips
It's not that people object to Google making money on YouTube, really. They just want their cut. Yesterday, YouTube opened a program which pays a portion of ad revenue to content creators to all comers. Well, all comers from the U.S. and Canada whom YouTube deems acceptable, that is. Rather than specifying who it will accept, YouTube suggests you keep applying if you've been rejected. That worked so well with Susie in the 8th grade, after all. More »
loser-generated content
Wikipedia to pay some contributors
Online encyclopedia Wikipedia will begin paying for "key illustrations" on the site, overturning the site's all-volunteer tradition. The funding for these illustrations comes from a donation by a man who feels that while Wikipedia is more up to date, Britannica, the traditional encyclopedic benchmark, has better illustrations. A list of 50 articles in need of better illustrations will be issued and contributors will be paid $40 if their illustration is chosen. With expenses weighing on Wikipedia's bottom line, could Jimmy Wales be cooking up schemes to fill out the top line?
loser-generated content
Why is the Hollywood writers' strike ultimately foolish? Because, as the rise of YouTube has demonstrated, millions of people are willing to settle for cats playing the piano, otters holding hands, and dogs riding skateboards. The Internet's wealth of loser-generated content may not match their output in quality, but for making Google richer, it does the trick nicely. This video is funny — but somehow, I don't think the writers should be laughing quite so hard.
Lolcats, bulldogs join writers on strike
Why is the Hollywood writers' strike ultimately foolish? Because, as the rise of YouTube has demonstrated, millions of people are willing to settle for cats playing the piano, otters holding hands, and dogs riding skateboards. The Internet's wealth of loser-generated content may not match their output in quality, but for making Google richer, it does the trick nicely. This video is funny — but somehow, I don't think the writers should be laughing quite so hard.
online video
