Entries from January 2008 ↓

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When mighty social networks are facing problem in retaining their users some people actually think that they will build a great social network by paying their users. The gist of the matter seems to be

"Looks like another pyramid scheme. 20,000 referrals and 20m impressions for a measly $1,000? Why don’t I put that effort into generating those users/impressions on my own site and make $40,000+?".

Common guys this is the most basic business principle - you don’t pay your users - you give them products and services and they pay you the money. You may enjoy it a little bit now but it won’t be sustainable in future. It will depend on how long you are able to continue with this model. I will tell you why this model works.

1) You get 100 advertisers who pay you 10,0000, you share 100 with 1000 users and pay 400 for your operation and 5,000 for your own advertising and still making some bucks.

2) But tomorrow when you have 10,000,000 users you will have to spend thousand times more for your resources and you will only have the tiniest portion of the share that will be available to you and that will be the time of the bust.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Yesterday, I came across a post on Business Week providing the two opposite views on why and why not is user generated content is junk.I am a pro UGC and couldn’t resist generating my own user generated content in favour of UGC. My new blog is hungry for traffic and to make it Digg compatible - I have titled the post as "100 reasons why user generated content is not junk". I hope, I land up on the Digg home page today. I also pray that, some nerd finds my post and brings my site down due to the overwhelming ‘you have been slashdotted’ effect. That would be sort of Nobel prize for UGC for me. Shit ! I am such a pathetic UGC attention seeker.

So here goes my - 100 reasons why user generated content is not junk

1. Because, the professional content is not GOLD.
Mediocracy rules the professional world, every person who holds the job of a journalist or producer cannot qualify as the professional. Professional is not equal to Professionalism. Great thinkers and philosophers of the past didn’t have any professional degree but we still call them great thinker and don’t rebuke their ideas by saying that ‘its user generated philosophy’ or thought.

2. Upstart to startup to the ‘Creative Genius’
Dell, Gates, Jobs, Page and many others do not have a master degree in business, we don’t call their businesses as the ‘user generated business’ - the merit lies with the results and not with who created  and how it was created. The UGC creators are the guys who are taking their first step towards creativity, some will fall flat, some will be satisfied with just one success story and won’t pursue it further, some of them will just enjoy that 2 seconds of fame and some of them will rise and shine and would enjoy the full glory. The same stuff happens in every walk of life and in every field. Yanni, before he turned into a successful musician was student of philosophy, if I remember correctly.

3. UGC is freedom & democracy
Digg becomes the most popular alternative social news site and the same users who make it successful revolt against it, when it tries to control things and Digg has to bow down to user pressure. Can you do the same with your news paper or television channel ?.

4. UGC Sows the seeds of creativity
Millions of users post billions of photos on Flickr, some of them post photos straight out of their toilets and some of them post that most ‘precious moment in life’ Users learn what to do and what not to do. Lot’s of Flickrish site start popping up. Digital camera & camera phone makers are having a great time. Is this junk expression, junk realism, junk creativity, junk friends, junk families, junk landscapes, junk portraits, junk close ups - who has the right to call this junk. Nobody is qualified to judge the creativity of the a 16 year old teen with extra surge of hormones and a camera phone to shoot OR to judge the creativity of 40 year old stressed out executive who finds extreme edgy joy in spotting stupid signs on the road.

5. Because sharing is a very human like
Bloggers and social media do the entire modern mankind a great favour. How many doctors have handed over to you piece of paper which say ‘top 10 things to better manage your diabetes’. How many photographers friends of yours are ready to share the ‘photoshop tricks and tips’ with you. It is these not-so-professional users who come to your rescue, learn the hard way, share it with you and learn more and share more. What if they are supported by  Adsense or Amazon. You also pay the fees to professional doctors, lawyers and such, do you always get their time, attention and advice ?.

6. It’s just the Planet of Apes
Our very first learning experience is just like apes, we observe, we mimic and we start doing things. As we grow older, we start having a misconception ‘ we are original’. If there is no problem of plenty in UGC, that means we are not evolving. UGC is a massive playground for testing Darwin’s theory. UGC is a proof that we are evolving - evolution of producers, distributors and technology

7. Evolving Ecosystem
If Industrial Lights & Magic shaped SFX in movies, UGC is shaping the media, technology and users themselves. UGC is not alone, it’s the ecosystem of producers, creators, contributors, curators, fowarders, commentors, viewers, technology, media, gadgets, devices, millions of codes and still counting.

8. Platform for professionals too
Who says user generated = amateur content?. UGC ecosystem is the plaform for professionals to showcase their creativity and rise in their field, the chance they would never get if they had to compete within the strict rules of any competition / corporate and standard set of qualifiers. Whatever that doesn’t make it to Oscar’s, is it not creative ?. UGC has provided a platform to millions of professional, who would other wise never get a second or even a first chance to become Super Stars and yeah they are much much better and bearable than ‘XYZ Idols’

9. Because there is no News on News Television & No Music on a Music Television.
Mainstream media has created a huge black hole for the content. News channels project political propoganda and no news, and music channels show you the dumb tricks of jack asses and no music.

10. UGC has no boundaries, it’s truely a ’small planet’
A kid from Bangalore enjoys mentos and cola experiment done in US and a techie from US gets computers tips and tricks from an Indian IIT graduate, also a full time blogger. Wonderful isn’t it - is this not our idea of the ideal world.

11. Would you ignore a milestone or an epic implementation, just b’cos it is UGC
Yawn !!!!!!! I don’t want to talk about Wikipedia now.

12. UGC is the C in Contribution, Collaboration and Creation
How have we forgotten the user generated codes, the user generated poetry of open source. The contribution is open, the collaboration is open and the creation is open.

13. Content is still the king
No matter how many millions of pages you create, there won’t be any page views, if you don’t have users, there won’t be any users if you don’t have good content - professional or user generated, whatever that it is.

14. Because MSM would never want you to be their user.
Slashdot - News for geeks, stuff that matters. Would the same stuff matter to the professional main stream media. It matters now.

15. It taught the MSM to be user friendly
For the first time, some amateurs told and proved the MSM what users really want. Not just bland news reporting, they want your original and raw open views and not what your media bosses told you to do. They also want some tips to enhance their lives and make things better - global warming is more important than global farting. If UGC is junk, why does the sames stuff that you see in blogosphere circulate in print the next day.

16. UGC is citizen media.
I love UGC when it gives an opportunity to some amateur blogger to provide unadulterated reporting from the land - where there is no citizen rights and no media.

Oh! that’s it - and I said 100 reasons - no problem - just spam my comments baby - and gimme 100 - gimme some ugc

Popularity: 23% [?]

Earthlink carries the mInfo  press release  What Were China’s 600 Million Mobile Users ‘Searching’ For Last Year? which provides insights on market trends and user behaviour of chinese mobile users.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Josh Collins compares the search engine marketing conversions on Google, Yahoo and MSN and finds that MSN gave the best conversion ratio.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Doctor Rose writes about branding and apple fanboy documentary MacHeads . As mentioned in the post, products are becoming our passionate possessions and our life now revolves around experiencing the use of that product. The music players, the mobile phones, the cameras are not just products - they are the gateways to our experiences and our lives.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Searchenginewatch reports about the new Live Search campaign Left Vs Right where "opponents from two sides of the political spectrum. Left-leaning "Patrick O’Neil" and right-wing "Britt Hayes" trade barbs about each other’s hygiene, political views, and intelligence"

Try ‘global warming’ or ‘india’ multiple refresh would make it more interesting

Popularity: 33% [?]

If you are newbie like me and planning to buy your first car, then you should have a look at this Indian Automobile special on MSN India. It’s a quick reference site for knowing the details on new car models and various other things like maintenance, expected launches, etc.

I was wondering which should be my first small car and on this current releases page  you can find the quick tips on the pros and cons of these car models Chevrolet Spark, Chevrolet Aveo-UV-A, Hyundai i10 and Maruti-Suzuki Zen Estilo.

And if you are curious to know what rides celebrity like John Abraham or Sachin Tendulkar prefer, check it on celebrity rides

Popularity: 21% [?]

Anna Farmery writes this excellent post - How brand will win in 2008.  I agree with her when she says :

"The web is becoming more social, more personalised, more integrated around the personal likes and values. This is actually great for brands, a fantastic time for marketing. Instead of throwing money at mass marketing and hoping your consumers see it - now you can reach out directly…wow, now that is powerful for brands.".

However, before you start doing this you need to understand the new ’social web’ ecosystem. Rodney Rumford points that out how some brands on facebook get it wrong

Popularity: 13% [?]

Don’t waste your user’s time by beating around the bush. I only read some very long posts, if the post is really the killer one, unique and very insightful. Otherwise even reading a two para post is a big thing for most of the users.  If you are maintaining a personal blog and you know your audience, then this problogger post will help you decide 7 types of blog post that which get you users, links and traffic

Just a caution though, don’t overuse it badly if you are not a lifehacker or zenhabits - they have a theme, focus and originality. If you are not original or topic based like them - you may be considered just a content poser or spammer.

And if you are still confused, read Great Scott’s post on why your viral content is not working. You can also watch Linklister Bait video by SEOMoz CEO on this page.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Make your users happy by understanding them a little better and web analytics will help you in that. Dennis Mortensen has posted 18 most popular Web Analytics posts of 2007

Popularity: 15% [?]