user-generated

Anyone who's ever edited or created a Wikipedia entry can attest to the fact that it's not that self-explanatory. They're in luck--the nonprofit anyone-can-edit encyclopedia has received $890,000 from the Stanton Foundation in order to make it easier to use.

More specifically, the grant was given to the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that encompasses Wikipedia. It'll fund the hire of three new software developers in the foundation's San Francisco office. Then, per a press release, the team will "commission research to identify the most common barriers to entry for first-time writers, and then … Read more

Amazon has enlisted a half dozen of its most dedicated (addicted?) reviewers to act as holiday gift experts this season. They'll be responsible for providing gift picks, tips, and other advice regarding their favorite products available on the mega-retail site.

Putting a "real people" face on holiday shopping is key for Amazon in a season full of thin wallets and nervous spenders: research firm eMarketer just lowered its projections for online holiday shopping. Many of the tips provided by Amazon's reviewers, for obvious reasons, deal with cost-cutting recession strategies.

Amazon has offered customer reviews since 1995, … Read more

AOL is ending its foray into user-generated video, the company confirmed Monday after a weekend of blog reports. On December 18, its AOL Video Uploads service will officially close its doors.

Users who have videos currently hosted through the service will receive an e-mail this week, and will be given the chance to transfer their videos to AOL's preferred alternative, start-up Motionbox, before December 18. If they don't, their videos will be deleted.

AOL has made a concerted effort to shake off some of its older and less successful properties--Journals, Hometown, and AOL Pictures, to name a few, … Read more

To some YouTube fans, the Web's iconic video-sharing site may appear to be losing its soul.

Two years ago, YouTube executives disdained anything but the most unobtrusive forms of advertising (no prerolls for them), and even promised to pioneer new ad formats. At the same time, YouTube refused to license rights to TV shows and feature films. Instead, the company bet big on the creative force of the masses to draw huge audiences and eventually advertising dollars. But things didn't turn out that way.

In the past week YouTube has announced it will auction off search terms as … Read more

I was interviewed by BrandWeek the other day for a story on the recent hype around “Design Thinking” in marketing. They were looking for a skeptic and found me. First of all, it is worth noting that the term “design thinking” is of course a clever marketing buzzword. It’s ironic that marketers themselves embrace it as the next big thing as it doesn’t create a new marketing paradigm so much as it proves that marketers are prone to being persuaded by their very own tricks. “Design Thinking” has become a brand, and brands are all the more powerful … Read more

(Credit: Plan Spark)

Now that the exhaustively inspirational Pop!Tech 2008  is over, it’s worthwhile taking a look at what’s next, in other words, at the conference's theme for 2009. The organizers’ choice is pretty telling and may be indicative of a larger shift among not only the elite thinkers gathering at Pop!Tech, but also broader public opinion. Succeeding this year’s theme “Scarcity and Abundance” will be “America Reimagined,” a “top-to-bottom look at America’s opportunities, its challenges, and its future” that promises to explore what it means to be a “superpower in the … Read more

YouTube has spent years trying to figure out how to monetize its mostly amateur-quality, user-created content.

The company has turned to pre-roll and post-roll ads, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledges that the "perfect ad product for YouTube has not been invented yet."

Perhaps Google is looking to the wrong inventors.

Traditional "Madison Avenue" advertising has failed YouTube. I agree with the sentiment expressed recently on the Marcom Professional blog:

In my opinion, one of the reasons that videos spread is the homemade quality....People are advertised to thousands of times a day. We see countless … Read more

Imagine seeing an ad on Facebook for a retailer like American Apparel or Target, and clicking a button to pass a 15-percent-off discount code to someone on your friends list. For advertisers looking to tap into the power of social networks, it sounds tantalizing.

That's the thinking behind "Engagement Ads," the new "experimental" advertising technology that social network Facebook unveiled last week. With the new program, members of Facebook can leave comments on participating ads, add the brands to their list of "fan pages," and use them to send friends virtual gifts. For … Read more

Microsoft offered up a few more details on Tuesday about its upcoming online video game marketplace for aspiring game developers.

Originally announced in February, Microsoft will allow user-generated games to be sold on its Xbox Live service this fall. On Tuesday, the company said it will let the developers keep up to 70 percent of the revenue generated by their games.

The scenario is similar to Apple's App Store, which sells applications for the iPhone created by developers that pay a fee to put their creations for sale in the online store.

Game developers will have to pay $99 … Read more