The Fact That Anyone Can Publish Means More Of The Good Stuff... And Yes, More Of The Bad Stuff

from the but-which-is-more-important dept

We've tried to articulate this before when various (often self-proclaimed) elitists like Nicholas Carr, Andrew Keen or Mark Helprin bash the rise of social media or the fact that "anyone" can publish. They love to highlight all of the bad and ridiculous stuff that people decide to publish. And, no doubt, plenty more bad stuff gets published. But... at the same time, a lot more good stuff gets published as well. Umair Haque lays this out perfectly in talking about the new media landscape in terms of "soda" and "wine."

Now consider an open mediascape. Here, there are a million blogs -- or more -- that are predictable, partisan, and pedestrian: soda. But the quality of information has already hit rock-bottom, and at the bottom, soda offered via blogs is just a substitute for a slightly different flavor of soda offered on shock radio. The soda anyone can now offer in an open mediaconomy isn't that much worse than the soda that big producers already offer.<

Here's what's different: the wine is of a higher quality. In an open mediascape, what is truly different is not the quality of soda, but the quality of wine. Sure, there are ten thousand rabid bloggers who have Glenn Beck on eternal robo-repeat. But I also have access to Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen, Robert Reich, and Paul Romer. I can hang out with Barry Ritholtz, Fred Wilson, and Rick Bookstaber.

In an open mediaconomy, yes, there's plenty lethally unhealthy soda on offer -- but I also have access to a new world of fine wine. In a closed mediaconomy, I'm out of luck: I'm stuck mostly with soda.

The net effect is this. The worse stuff is not that much worse. But the good stuff is way, way better.

I'd argue that even if the worst stuff is worse (and, at times, it is), that doesn't really matter, since the good stuff is still way, way better.

Separately, this argument applies in many other fields beyond just media as well. For example, we've seen claims that because societies that didn't have strong patent laws exhibit lots of copying, it means that there's no innovation that happens there. And, yet, that's not really true at all. Yes, there's a lot more copying, but that doesn't preclude more innovation -- and often that greater level of copying helps incentivize more innovation by giving those who can innovate more reason to try to stand out from the crowd. A perfect example of this is in the fashion space, where a lack of a fashion copyright has led to lots of competition -- and, yes, lots of copying -- but also a lot more innovation.

This can be difficult for some to understand, because they only look at the percentages, rather than the absolutes. They look at the percentage of those in the market producing "good content" or "innovating" and assume that's the best way to measure. But if they looked at it from an absolute standpoint, concerning how much good content is being produced (while ignoring the bad content) or how much new innovation is being produced (ignoring the copying), they'd realize the actual, absolute, outcome is much better than before.

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The User Generated Font Community

from the challenging-business-models dept

It's often amazing to see the larger struggles of one industry reflected in a very similar situation in a much more narrowly focused industry. Obviously, we've had tons of stories about major media operations, from television to radio to newspapers have suddenly struggled to compete in a world where there's also user-generated content to compete with on all levels. Certainly, most of that user-generated content is not very good, but that's missing the point. Some of it is quite good -- and the good work tends to get noticed and float to the top. Basically, the old guard no longer has a monopoly, and that can require a major adjustment in terms of both product and business model. And the same thing is happening in much more narrowly focused markets -- such as fonts.

A few months back, we wrote about how one font company got so upset that one of its fonts was found on a file sharing network that it sent a huge bill to the guy it believed was responsible, and then increased the price on the font, along with a huge rant about people "stealing" their fonts. This is like the RIAA flipping out over file sharing -- and rather than recognizing that the unauthorized file sharing was actually a sign of people wanting a more efficient market -- trying to resist that market.

Then, compare that to this wonderful story in Slate about an online service called FontStruct that lets anyone create and share their own fonts. Suddenly, a large group of folks who didn't even have the means before can now make their own fonts. They're certainly not as good as professional fonts in most cases, but for many people they are good enough (and some of them are quite good). As the article notes: "FontStruct is the Casiotone keyboard of font-making. Maybe you can use it to bang out a credible pop song. Beethoven? No way."

But just as user generated content has changed other businesses, it also impacts these smaller businesses. Now some (and I'm sure the font company we discussed earlier would agree) will bemoan this situation, complain about the "amateurs," insult the crappy fonts and insist that it will hurt the overall market. But that's the wrong way to look at this. What we're seeing is more fonts available, and more people even being aware of font possibilities. The best work bubbles to the top, thanks to a rating system. A good font designer can use a program like this to highlight and promote his or her works -- and then sell the ability to do custom work as well, or additional design work. It becomes a win-win across the board. More fonts are available, it's easier for the best designers to promote themselves, and more people who would never consider paying for a font learn about what's possible and available.

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Money Can Get In The Way Sometimes But It Doesn't 'Ruin Everything'

from the peer-production dept

Matthew Yglesias points to a paper by John Quiggin (of Crooked Timber fame) and Dan Hunter that looks at the growing importance of non-financial incentives for the production of information goods. They point out that efforts like Wikipedia, free software, and the blogosphere are organized in a way that's fundamentally different from traditional for-profit enterprises. Many contributors participate for reasons other than financial gain, and the overall project doesn't have a centralized decision-maker the way Microsoft and the Encyclopedia Britannica do. The authors advocate the reform of legal institutions, such as overly restrictive copyright laws, that implicitly assume that creative works are always produced for financial gain.

This all seems right to me, and indeed, Hunter wrote a Policy Analysis for the Cato Institute (for whom I'm an adjunct scholar) that made some of the same points. However, I think the authors overstate their case, as suggested by the title of their paper, "Money Ruins Everything." I assume they intended this to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but they nevertheless do seem overly hostile toward commercial efforts. It certainly is true that in many cases, adding money to a volunteer effort will create more problems than it solves. For example, I've argued in the past that Wikipedia should resist the temptation to accept advertising because arguing about what to do with the money could begin to overshadow Wikipedia's organic editing process. However, I think they go overboard when they denigrate the value of venture-backed startups. They suggest that the investments of the dot-com bubble "may have rewarded their promoters, but they produced little of lasting social value, at least by comparison to the vast sums that were invested." But I think that if anything, the exact opposite is true. As we've pointed out before, the dot-com bubble was great for the economy at large, because it allowed people to experiment with a lot of new technologies and business models on venture capitalists' dime. Investing in a bubble may be a bad investment strategy, but the results are often good for the broader society. So of course we shouldn't adopt policies that hinder the success of non-commercial projects like Linux and Wikipedia, but we should also ensure that the legal system remains hospitable to commercial development.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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No, Getting Users To Translate Facebook Into Other Languages Isn't Exploitation

from the you-are-getting-compensated dept

A few people have sent in the recent story about how Facebook has relied on volunteer users to translate the site into other languages. That story has resulted in something of a debate from users who feel that this is somehow exploiting these translators, since they're working for "free" for a company that is supposedly valued at $15 billion (despite revenues of about $150 million). This is the same old bogus Nicholas Carr argument that this is somehow exploitation because the users aren't getting paid in cash for their labor. That, of course, is missing the point. No one is being forced or compelled to do these translations. They're doing it because they are getting compensated in their own way. It's either recognition from the community, or merely the fact that doing this enables them to use Facebook more effectively -- and that's compensation enough. For the users who do the translation, it's obviously a fair trade, otherwise, why would they take part?

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Google Sued Over User-Generated Google Earth Content In Israel

from the controversy-follows-Google-around dept

A few years back, there was a bit of a controversy after Taiwanese officials got upset with Google for including Taiwan as a part of China in its Google Maps offering. When it comes to disputed maps and sovereignty, it's no surprise that the map makers are drawn into regional conflicts on which they wish they could remain neutral. Now that Google is increasingly allowing user generated content to appear on Google Earth and Google Maps, things get even more confusing. In fact, reader Jason writes in to let us know of a brewing controversy, where a town in Israel is suing Google over a note placed on Google Earth by a user, suggesting that the town itself was built on the ruins of a Palestinian town, whose residents were forced out. The people in the town deny this, and say that the land was barren and uninhabited when they arrived and built the town following World War II.

No matter what your opinion on the history of the land, it's difficult to see how Google is liable. The person who created the note is easily identified. In fact, the AP reporter spoke to him, and he noted that he would gladly change the note on Google Earth if presented with more evidence that the Palestinian town was actually located elsewhere. Either way, it's hard to see how anyone really benefits from this particular argument or lawsuit. Google merely provided the platform, and arguing (and suing) about what town existed where at what point hardly seems like a productive path for anyone. Still, don't be surprised to see other complaints lodged against Google for content found on Google Earth. People tend to take things like maps pretty seriously, which is why there are occasional wars over how those lines are drawn. By opening up the possibility of "virtually" drawing lines however people want, Google is opening the door to quite a bit of animosity within certain disputed regions. One would hope that people would recognize there are more productive issues to focus on -- but that seems unlikely.

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Does Truth In Advertising Still Apply To User Generated Ads?

from the legal-permutations dept

From a purely academic standpoint, it really is fun to see how modern technology is making life difficult for those who rely on old and potentially obsolete laws. However, the decisions made concerning these laws may have a pretty wide impact. We've discussed in the past the pitfalls of asking fans to create "user-generated" ads, but a new lawsuit raises a very interesting legal question. If you ask people to make their own ads for your product, how do truth in advertising laws apply? It's probably not much of an issue if fans are simply going out and creating an ad for fun on their own -- but what if you encourage it? Plenty of big name brands have been setting up contests, getting people to create commercials for them. Yet, when sub shop chain Quiznos did that, competitor Subway sued them, claiming that many of the ads made exaggerated in false claims about Subway's sandwiches. Quiznos, for its part, claims that thanks to the safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act, it's not liable for the content created by the participants in the contest. Subway, on the other hand, argues that by encouraging such actions with a contest, Quiznos has overstepped the boundary, and violated its trademarks. While you can see the reasoning behind Subway's argument, it's hard not to side with Quiznos on this one. No one is going to take most of the user-generated ads seriously -- knowing that they're designed to poke fun at Subway. Also, any attempt to expand "truth in advertising" type rules to fan-created ads is going to cause all sorts of unnecessary problems. Still, when politicians were first writing up trademark laws and truth-in-advertising laws, I'd imagine the possibility of user-generated advertisements never even crossed their minds.

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Studios Unveil Meaningless 'Guidelines' For User Content Sites

from the audible-magic-full-employment-agreement dept

There's a lot of talk about the new "guidelines" that were announced today mainly by the big television studios, along with a few smaller players in the online video space. The press coverage highlights two things: this is a big deal and it's notable that Google didn't agree to join. I'm not sure either thing is really true. Reading through the actual principles, about the only thing that's noteworthy is how pointless they are. If anything, they're basically a "full employment for Audible Magic" document in that they require companies to install the type of filters that Audible Magic is selling (though, it's still questionable how well they work). There are some totally meaningless statements about supporting fair use, but no details on how that's actually to be done. In other words, these principles are basically "everyone should install filters that block unauthorized content and... uh... the content companies will remain aware that fair use sort of exists sometimes." That's somewhat meaningless. Google's reason for not joining, even though it has come up with its own filters, is that it doesn't see why it should agree to stand by any specific guidelines that go above and beyond what the law requires, as there could be conditions under which such guidelines hold back necessary innovation. The bigger point, though, is how truly meaningless these guidelines are. If those guidelines are truly effective in stopping some unauthorized content on these sites, that content (and many users) will simply migrate elsewhere. In other words, it won't stop that unauthorized use of content and it won't help any of the companies that have agreed to the principles. That means that the impact of such things is likely to be pretty much nil.

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Romney Learns About The Pitfalls Of User-Generated Content

from the setting-america-straight dept

In late August, the Romney presidential campaign unveiled a create-your-own-ad contest that gave Mitt Romney supporters the opportunity to create a television ad that the campaign would air in New Hampshire. Well, the winner was announced last week. Unfortunately for the Romney campaign, Bruce Reed, a Democratic strategist turned blogger, submitted his own entry, a hilarious video making fun of Romney. At one point Reed's video had more page views than all the official finalists put together. As a result, the contest wound up mostly giving Romney's critics an opportunity to make fun of him.

It's a problem that often crops up when people try to mix the top-down structure of a campaign or a company with the bottom-up ethos of user-generated content. Often, the users don't generate the kind of content you were expecting. Romney's experience demonstrates a couple of important points about the challenges of harnessing user-generated content that we can glean from the open source world. One lesson is that it's a bad idea to pin all your hopes on one big product release. Open source projects have found that it makes more sense to release stuff as it's ready, rather than trying to commit to finishing particular features by a particular date. By the same token, instead of promising to spend tens of thousands of dollars airing a single winning ad, Romney could have made it a weekly contest, with a small cash prize to each week's winner. That probably would have generated just as many entries, created more enthusiasm, and made it a less juicy target for the pranksters of the world. If someone made a really good ad, they could still run it on TV if they wanted to, but they wouldn't be forced spend a lot of money airing an ad that wasn't very good. It would also allow them to have a sense of humor about critical ads instead of trying to block them all from the site.

A more fundamental point, which also comes from the open source world, is that good user generated content is almost always the product of an enthusiastic and cohesive online community. Every significant open source project has a tight-knit community of developers, and Wikipedia is run by several hundred volunteer editors. User-generated commercials are no different. The more people there are creating videos, commenting and voting on other peoples' videos, and policing potential vandalism, the more likely the contest will turn out to be a success. Of course, a community of enthusiastic supporters has uses far beyond producing free TV ads. That's why it's silly to do user-generating content as a one-time, high-profile event. Not only is such an effort less likely to succeed on its own terms, but it also misses the opportunity to harness the interest the contest generates into building longer-term relationships. If people participate in a contest and then never come back to the site, that's a huge missed opportunity. Of course, none of this is unique to candidates; the same principles apply to companies: user generated commercials can work brilliantly for companies, but they're best seen as an integral part of a continuing relationship with your most enthusiastic online customers, not as a one-off publicity stunt.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Content Scares Advertisers Away From Social-Networking Sites

from the this-offensive-content-is-brought-to-you-by... dept

Thanks to the extensive use of ad networks and other middlemen, it's common for companies to not know each and every place online where their advertisements appear. For instance, a lot of big companies claimed ignorance when their ads showed up through adware products, saying that they had no idea they were supporting the practice. Last week, a number of British companies became alarmed with their ads on the Facebook social-networking site appeared on the profile pages of the British National Party, a far-right wing political party that's generally seen as racist and fascist. The companies yanked their ads from the site, and now the British government says it won't advertise on user-generated content sites for fear that its ads would run alongside contentious or undesirable content. This is a serious concern for many businesses, which don't want to be seen as supporting or associated with certain groups or types of content. But it's a potentially bigger problem for Facebook and other social-networking and user-generated content sites. These sites' major challenge is figuring out how to monetize the massive amounts of traffic they get, and their poor click-through rates are already one factor that holds down the rates they can charge. Couple those low rates with a dearth of quality advertisers scared off by the sites' content, and it sounds like a vicious cycle for social-networking and UGC sites.

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Online Criticism Isn't Just Easy, It Sticks Around Too

from the they-ruined-my-pants dept

We've noted before how some business owners feel extremely threatened by criticism on the web. The idea that anybody can become a critic and have a platform to broadcast their opinion is a scary one for businesses that don't treat their customers well. But there's another related issue here: web criticism sticks around. One blogger has noted that a post he made about how he was frustrated with his bank continues to attract comments from other annoyed customers. It's much like our post on Amazon Prime from February 2005, which thanks to the magic of search engines, continues to attract new comments every day from people upset with the way Amazon bills for the program (with some of them blaming us for it). His point is that not only does news travel quickly online, it sticks around -- just ask the maker of Kryptonite bike locks. Perhaps this is part of the reason some businesses freak out so badly when they're criticized online, and will fuel further calls from some quarters to moderate or censor user-generated business reviews and comments. But that's not a solution; the best way to deal with it is to treat your customers well.

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GPS Maker Hopes To Harness The Power Of The Community

from the g-p-us dept

The GPS navigation unit market is one that's largely commoditized, with little apparent differentiation to many consumers among products. It's also a highly competitive market, particularly for makers of standalone systems, who must compete against car manufacturers' built-in offerings, and now also against mobile-phone based systems. But TomTom, the world's biggest vendor of standalone GPS units, is hoping to set itself apart from its rivals by harnessing the power of its community of users. It's made a bid for Tele Atlas, a digital mapmaker, and once it owns the company and its maps, it will be able to incorporate all sorts of user-generated information into its maps and navigation units. Users will be able to notify the company of changes to roads and conditions, or to update information on points of interest, such as restaurants that have opened or closed. This sort of "crowdsourcing" has gotten a lot attention over the past few years, though many implementations of it leave a lot to be desired. But TomTom's idea could be a pretty good one. Not only does it help the company improve its products and differentiate from its rivals at a relatively low cost, users also derive a tangible benefit from participation in the way of updated and more accurate maps and info, so they have some incentive to participate.

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