There Is No Such Thing as User-Generated Content

Nivi said ..

User-generated content is all the rage! Unfortunately, there is no such thing.

Users are not interested in generating content.

They are interested in communicating.

Blogs are not content. They are communication.

The “15 million” bloggers out there do not consider themselves publishers. Probably only a few hundred or a thousand of those bloggers are “publishing”. The rest of them are communicating. Just like they communicate over email or telephone or IM. They are regular folks who are just talking.
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How to Save the World

Dave Pollard writes: “Alex Pattakos’ book Prisoners of our Thoughts synthesizes the work of death camp survivor Viktor Frankl down to seven key principles that will help you be happier and more successful in your life:

1. Exercise the freedom to choose your own attitude
2. Know your ‘why’, and discover your higher purpose
3. Overcome your fears through self-knowledge
4. Don’t try too hard or delude yourself, so you don’t work against your self-interest
5. See yourself from a distance, so you ‘get outside yourself’
6. Shift your ‘frame’, your focus of attention, so you can see things differently
7. Get beyond your own self-interest, and connect with community and the world”
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Apple, Microsoft duel over iPod patent

Business Week: Apple Vs Microsoft on iPod
“AUG. 16 9:04 P.M. ET Given the intense rivalry between Apple Computer Inc. and Microsoft Corp., this recent revelation had a comedic tinge: Apple took too long to file a patent on part of its blockbuster iPod music players, so Microsoft beat Apple to it.

Bloggers and other tech pundits snickered at the prospect of Steve Jobs having to pay Bill Gates royalties on the beloved iPods, which account for more than one-third of Apple’s revenue. One Web columnist even dubbed the patent office the ‘iPod killer.’more…

But that scenario is unlikely.”

From Reality TV to Reality Ads

Advertising with a Difference
Led by the Dove ‘beauties’ campaign featuring real women rather than perfect models, these ads seem to be striking a chord with consumers
An odd thing happened at Ogilvy and Mather’s Chicago office this spring. An emotional father called the ad agency’s managing partner, Debora Boyda, thanking her for creating the Dove soap campaign that features decidedly ordinary-looking women in their underwear. Not skinny, beautiful models here. Just randomly selected women who tout their use of Dove soap.”
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BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Konfeedulator: Feedthink meets widgethink

Jeff Jarvis wrote: “Yahoo is buying Konfabulator, the neat program that lets you place all kinds of constantly updated widgets on your computer and lets all kinds of creative and generous people write those widgets. Apple — the great copycat — snarfed up the idea for its OSX dashboard. In the old days, we would have said that Yahoo is fighting Microsoft and Apple to take over the operating system or the desktop.”more….

Bid your name into a Grisham novel | CNET News.com

CNET Reports: Bid your name into a Grisham novel
“A group of American authors has decided to auction names of characters in their forthcoming novels, in a bid to raise funds for the First Amendment Project.

Using eBay, the authors will auction the character names using the auction portal’s charity listings, Giving Works. People can submit bids on behalf of their own name or any other name they choose during the auction series, which is scheduled to run between Sept. 1 and Sept. 25. The money raised will be donated to the FAP, a nonprofit organization promoting freedom of information and expression.

The idea for the auction came from Neil Gaiman, who recently sold off the name of a cruise liner in his upcoming novel, ‘Anansi Boys,’ for $35,000 on eBay. The proceeds were donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.”

My comment: I wonder where the worl is going to be now……
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From Web page to Web platform | CNET News.com

CNET News reports: From Web page to Web platform
“What do you get if you cross Google Maps with an online gas-price tracker? A shift in the way the Web works.

The advent of the Web 10 years ago opened up vast banks of information to anyone with an Internet connection. Now, clever programming tricks that use data from public Web sites are letting developers mix up that information to suit consumers’ particular needs.

Cheap Gas, a Google Maps-powered interface, is part of the phenomenon. Dozens of such nifty ‘mash up’ programs, built by independent developers using tools provided by online businesses, provide services beyond those of the base sites.” more….

The Seeds of the Next Silicon Valley

Business Week said :- “The Seeds of the Next Silicon Valley
How Indian tech companies are helping to incubate startups

At the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus in Kharagpur, near Calcutta, a small team of engineers is beavering away on what they hope will prove a killer competitor to the BlackBerry. At IIT Bombay, an earth sciences professor is about to launch a company that will tap the vapor of geothermal springs to drive turbines, generators, and power stations — the first company to do so in India. Across the country, at IIT Madras, students and professors have spun off a startup that’s working on a no-frills network computer aimed at the Asian corporate and government markets that will sell for just $100. ‘We dream of building billion-dollar-product companies here,’ says Ashok Jhunjhunwala, an electrical engineering professor at IIT Madras. ‘We believe we have laid the foundation for them.’” more:

Circle of Innovation-Tom Peters

I bought a book yesterday “Circle of Innovation”. Truly a different book. A must read, I nearly finished half of the same. He explains the WOW factor. Nothing is greater than the WOW factor. Will keep this blog updated as and when I finish the book.

Invention intervention–fixing the patent system | CNET News.com

Patent system’s problems defy easy solutions
By Michael Kanellos
August 4, 2005

In the early 1800s, the U.S. patent office was housed at a converted hotel in Washington, D.C., and when applications were approved, a clerk would ride the agency’s pony across town to get the president’s signature on them.

Reliance on the horse was a sign of the ‘primitive state of the country and of the patent office at the time, where the quickest way to deliver messages around the city of Washington was by a boy on a pony,’ according to ‘The Patent Office Pony,’ by Kenneth W. Dobyns. He also writes that in 1835, the office issued 757 patents.”
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