User Generated Content

80/20 publishing, makers of Jpeg Magazine have another interesting community produced title that’s just caught our eye. Everywhere is a printed travel magazine that’s made up of 100% user generated content. Anyone can submit photos or writing about their travel experiences, which are then voted on by other users. The best of these submissions are culled down by Everywhere’s editors into what becomes the final issue. As compensation, published contributors get $100 and a years subscription. The magazine’s focus is on unique, inspiring and hidden gems that may be overlooked by the big travel mags.

Everywhere Magazine

[via Telstar Logistics]

The folks over at Free Art & Technology have launched an internet “initiative” intended to share triumphs over a bulging inbox. Tackling a flurry of email is always a daunting task, but once completed who do you celebrate with? F.A.T. has the answer with Inbox Victory where they challenge users to submit web cam shots pointing to gleefully vacant inboxes and share them on their site.

Their words of inspiration:

Have you ever been in the situation where you spend days trying answer all of your email only to accomplish your goal and have no one to share in your victory? All you want is a high five, a pat on the back, and a “job well done soldier!”, and yet most likely all you are left with is an empty room and a cold cup of coffee. Inbox Victory is an initiative that says, “you deserve that high five!”

Inbox Victory

We’ve mentioned unique printing company Moo before. Now they’ve gone into business cards. Richard Moross’ 4 year old company is known for their fun, mini sized calling cards. Starting next week they’ll also be offering the larger, standard sized cards as well. Moo business cards will maintain most of the customizable features of the original and comes with 100 percent recycled and biodegradable eco-card option, for no extra charge.

[via Gigaom]

Danah Boyd has compiled a massive list of known articles about social network sites. Lots of research into topics dealing with all aspects of social networking, web 2.0 and collaborative communities. Some titles include “Rhythms of Social Interaction: Messaging within a Massive Online Network”, “Hyperfriends and Beyond: Friendship and Social Norms on LiveJournal” and ” How Peer Photos Influence Member Participation in Online Communities”.

[via Portals and KM]

We are very excited to have creative consultant, author, and PSFK friend, George Parker speaking at the upcoming PSFK Conference San Francisco. The last time George spoke at one of our conferences (this is his fourth appearance), he sat across from Missy Suicide and discussed how Suicide Girls has evolved into a well loved brand. This time, George will be moderating our “Using It” panel, which will include Adrian Ho, Mark Lewis (DDB), Lynn Casey (Team Noesis) and Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence) and discuss how companies and organizations can leverage social media to enhance consumer dialog, evolve product offering and improve sales.

First, who are you and what do you do?

I am an advertising creative consultant with more than thirty years experience working for agencies and clients in Europe and the US. Having experienced the insanities of the ad biz for so long, my profanity laden blog www.adscam.typepad.com is required reading for all those who share my view that much of the business is teetering on the edge of irrelevancy. Attacking BDA’s (Big Dumb Agencies) with relish, AdScam is one of the best read and most commented on Ad Blogs. After my last book, MadScam, I am now putting the finishing touches on my next opus, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, a fifty year update on Vance Packard’s classic, The Hidden persuaders. I guarantee it will be as full of opinionated piss and vinegar as my blog.

You’ll be speaking on our “Using It” panel. Can you sum up your views on how companies and organizations leverage social media to enhance consumer dialogue, evolve product offerings, and improve sales?

With all the hot air being expanded on the subject of “Social Media,” it’s time for us to burst the balloon and honestly face up to the fact that most companies and organizations don’t have a clue about using social media in an effective way.

Five websites that provide you with inspiration:

PSFK (Brownie points for that one!!!)
Suicide Girls (Best social network that makes money)
Adverganza (Cathy Taylor, best ad journalist around)
AdAge (Best trade mag for in-depth coverage)
Talent Imitates, Genius Steals (Best “Planner” in the Universe)

Thanks, George!

Like what George has to say? Why not come and hear him speak at the PSFK Conference San Francisco?

Hip hop artist Ludacris and reality TV producer Matt Apfel have started a new service called WeMix. It allows aspiring musicians to upload any kind of musical performance and get feedback from both peers and industry pros. The website features standard social networking features including profiles, video uploads and song rating. There’s also a toll free number to call where you can record your songs. If Ludacris or another of the sites celebrity mentors likes an artist, they’ll get flown to Los Angeles to record a polished version of the song in 48 hours for a WeMix video series.

Ludacris explains why he started the service:

“The old way of making records is a thing of the past,” Ludacris told Listening Post via phone. “A&R, marketers, the radio game, million dollar videos, predictable producers — this system makes it really tough for new blood or new ideas to rise to the top. Using WeMix allows new artists to get their voice heard.”

[via Wired Listening Post]

At the upcoming PSFK Conference San Francisco, Adrian Ho, founding partner of Zeus Jones, will be joining George Parker, Mark Lewis (DDB), Lynn Casey (Team Noesis) and Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence) on our “Using It” panel. The discussion will examine how companies can use social media to enhance consumer dialogue, evolve product offerings, and improve sales.

First, who are you and what do you do?

I am a founding partner at Zeus Jones. We’re a company that believe actions speak louder than words and are in business to help clients use their marketing to do things for people instead of saying things to them. We call this marketing as a service. I study the evolution in brands and branding along with developments in technology in order to develop marketing strategies and ideas for our clients.

You’ll be speaking on our “Using It” panel. Can you sum up your views on how companies and organizations leverage social media to enhance consumer dialogue, evolve product offerings, and improve sales?

Social media is changing very quickly, so I don’t think companies can “leverage” it but they definitely must participate. People are using social media to build online reputations and relationships that influence their physical reputations, relationships and behaviour very strongly. This isn’t happening overnight and companies who haven’t been participating along the way may find themselves facing an insurmountable deficit as these things start to solidify.

Five websites that provide you with inspiration:

FriendFeed

Techmeme

Mashable

ReadWriteWeb

PSFK

Thanks, Adrian!

Why not come and hear Adrian speak at the PSFK Conference San Francisco?

Platoniq is a Barcelona based collective who organize and create independent community media projects. With the motto of “taking the internet to the streets” they’ve started a venture called The Bank Of Common Knowledge.

Through a series of events called Free Knowledge Markets, the Bank uses open source ethics in knowledge transmission. They’re evoking the internet’s’ spirit of sharing by teaching free public accessible classes in a wide variety of subjects (from gardening to microphone building), and with video tutorials.

We Make Money Not Art reports:

Inspired by an Internet shaped by the collective effort of thousands of distributed agents who publicly shared their knowledge to achieve a common goal, the BCK project is based on the firm belief that creating, sharing, transmitting and exchanging knowledge in the public sphere is a key element to the growth and development of our societies.

The Bank of Common Knowledge exports the dynamics of Free Culture and the Copyleft philosophy to general processes of knowledge generation and transmission among citizens. Work processes and methodologies are researched while the production of content, mutual education and citizen participation is carried out for the purpose of giving free access to the knowledge generated by the communities in which the Common Knowledge Bank is installed.

Futurist James Cascio has written a timely essay about an emerging problem he calls the “Participatory Decepticon”. He explains that there’s a dark side to the proliferation of ubiquitous media capturing devices and easy to use editing software. Cascio says we’ll see a rise in participatory deception: purposeful manipulation of media to discredit individuals and groups. An early iteration of this trend can be seen in the political arena, where the propagation of defamatory memes is only the beginning. Coming next is doctored video that could do far more harm than a rumor.

Cascio explains:

But add easy video manipulation to the mix, and another possibility emerges: the crafting of political videos documenting candidate insults and errors that never happened. Not in a clumsy, easily-detected form, but as a sufficiently-believable web video. There are more than enough audio recordings out there of most major political candidates to allow political pranksters/”dirty tricksters” to make that candidate say just about anything; the cameraphone and flash video media offer insufficient clarity to be able to see if a candidate’s mouth is truly saying the words he or she seems to be saying.

Open The Future: The Participatory Decepticon