You may have heard me before railing at the term user generated content. It infuriates me because it embodies two ideas: “you mean we can get them to make films for us for free?” and “Well yes they can use our space but only when and how it suits us”.
It begins with the assumption that you can’t trust the public – or rather the public is just too risky to trust. This has shaped too many public and private sector approaches to sharing with the audience.
Websites don’t exist without links, they don’t exist without readers and hence they don’t exist without community. It is the users, the comments they make, the virtual, intellectual and actual links they establish through using your content that turns it from a string of one and noughts into something with influence in the world.
Without the user there is no content, so learn to trust us.
Tag: New Media
A Newspaper style guide for the blog age.
Simon Heffer has updated the style guide for the Daily Telegraph including:
“Increasingly, as the distinction between publishing the newspaper and producing the website fades, we will stop using such words as ‘yesterday’ and ‘today’ in copy except when necessary to avoid confusion or to promote exclusive stories.”
“On the internet the priority for any headline is to inform search engines (and therefore readers) what the article is about. Its language should therefore be concrete, not abstract, and contain full names.”
Quite right. Please add “blog posts should make frequent reference to the evolution of the web and recently launched Apple devices to encourage people to comment and link” and also “please allow people to trackback without having to login in to your stupid site”.
Stroll Brum and mobile blogging.
Walkit.com now covers Birmingham. Type in your start and finish places and it tells you the best route for walking. It reveals how far, expected time at different walking paces, how many calories you’ll burn depending on walk speed and even how much co2 you’ll save if you don’t drive. My place to Digbeth in 24 fast paced minutes. All it needs is to add return journey time at “drunk stagger” speed and the service will be complete. GREAT SITE.
In Barcelona, at the Mobile World Congress Nokia has unveiled sat-nav for strollers, with plans so sell 35million GPS phones this (y)ear. Maybe useful when you’re lost – but I’m not keen to wander down the street staring at my phone.
One thing Nokia is learning to do are those oh-so web 2.0 thangs – share and play according to Darren Waters on the BBC’s dot.life blog. Ovi is Nokias upgrade of what was once twango.com. It looks to me more like a proprietary user generated content and attention capture site – that thing we used to call a portal. I may be wrong. Darren says Ovi will allow people to upload up to 100 different file types. So an easily opened portal then.
Nokia does offer single button blog and flickr updates from some phones (although no social features on the website promoting them), but I think I’m still more keen on the iPhone var uri = ‘https://impgb.tradedoubler.com/imp?type(inv)g(17088080)a(1265758)’ + new String (Math.random()).substring (2, 11); document.write(‘‘); approach, which just offers you the web as you know it, and hence the freedom to use the web as you will, rather than Nokia will. Judging from the single comment on this entry it remains tied into specific apps.
However I have still to acquire a decent mobile phone and contract end is approaching, so anyone with experience of the N95 or iPhone for social media please let me know what you think.
Blog Council. Walls come a tumbling down.
The creation of the Blog Council is fascinating. A group of very large corporates collaborating to evolve their policy towards using/managing the blogosphere.
“Every major corporation is struggling with the question of how to use blogs and engage the blogosphere the right way,” said Sean O’Driscoll, General Manager, Community Support Services for Microsoft. “The Blog Council brings together precisely the people who need to explore these issues together, in a productive and private networking environment. We can work together to develop model policies that set the standard for corporate blogging excellence.”
I’m not sure of the relevance of the title other than I thought Blog Council – then Style Council then hummed the song then thought there’s something about freedom and control here. Lets hope the corporates keep on the track of openness as an innovation driver (whilst quietly patenting every burp and fart from their staff) Some of their work is in private – some will be in public – so some walls still there. Hat tip to Steve Bridger for sharing this link on facebook.
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