New Thought: Let's Pay The Creators, Publishers, Producers!
This weekend at BloggerCon, there was lots of interesting discussion. I ended the first day Dave Winer asked us what we’re all doing to change the world. When I had my chance at the mic, I noted that I’m very mindful of the leverage that other companies are creating around the things WE create. Doc dug a little deeper on my point which I quickly whipped out the “user-generated content” banner. My thought, as I’ve noted before, is that we are not users, we’re Active Publishers - reacting to an new environment of swift media.
My main point, however, is that when someone asks us to create something for them and doesn’t pay us, or worst, patronizes us with tokens of their sincerity, that we’re being put in the vice grip and leveraged into larger markets and networks that we can’t easily see from our seats in the nosebleed section.
Today, ShopWiki made a very interesting gesture towards our community:
ShopWiki, an incredibly innovative online shopping community, will announce today another step to expand their service’s offerings. The company will pay users $50 per video for the first 500 submitted product review videos selected for inclusion on the site - that’s $25k total. This site is nuts already and paying people to add video reviews is going to take it over the top in terms of usefulness. Or maybe it’s just really cool. I’m not Mr. Online-shopping by a long shot and even I think ShopWiki is loads of fun to use.One interesting counter to my argument was offered by Mary Hodder of Dabble towards the end of the day. She seemed to take a position that I made too sweeping a generalization with regards to those using that term. Her point being that she views herself as a User - referencing her prior role in usability. I went to her afterwards to clear the air a bit - and that conversation is important.
First, I noted that I have no problem with any company that recognizes the value in what they’re asking for and creates a pathway for rewarding the participants. There’s not as many as there should be yet, but there’s quite a bit of activity in this arena and more en route. We’ll never have equal footing if we don’t continue to assert our value.
Second, I still reject the term User-Generated except in the context that I am explicitly requested to create it - at which point I am a user of a system designed to collect something from me. On the other hand, while I surely am -using- Wordpress to make this blog, I am certainly not a user of SocialTwister - I am the publisher, editor, and janitor. Mary’s vantage point that, as a usability person, everyone’s a user simply isn’t sufficient for the range of participating and interaction we have in the world today.
Nothing like winding down a whirlwind trip to San Francisco with a blinking exclamation point, huh?
[full disclosure: I am the CEO of a startup dedicated to getting us all paid for our creativity and ability or to go broke trying]
technorati tags:socialroots, bloggerconiv, mary+hodder, napsterization, dabble, monetization, socialmedia, blogging, videoblogging, podcasting, activepublishing, crowdsourcing