Self Publishing Portal from Project Gutenberg
Posted: July 20, 2012 Filed under: project gutenberg, user generated content Leave a commentIn UContent’s chapter on Project Gutenberg (aka PG) I focused on the procedure the user must follow to contribute content to Gutenberg’s large depository of works in the public domain. The contributed content, however, is rarely the original work of the contributor.
Barbara Quint recently reported PG has expanded its role, and launched its portal for
user-generated content (self-published works). PG’s “Self-Publishing Portal” went public on July 4, 2012.
Self-published authors are able to upload their works as PDFs (or MP3s for spoken word), and share them. Moreover, authors retain all rights (e.g., they may withdraw their works if, for instance, a commercial publisher takes an interest) and, of course, true to PG’s generous mission, the authors can use the Portal for free. As of today the Portal has 693 works.
Web expert builds Google Custom Search Engine to help all of us
Posted: July 11, 2012 Filed under: Custom Search Engines, user generated content | Tags: CSE, Custom Search Engines, Research Buzz, Tara Calishain 3 CommentsTara Calishain, creator of Research Buzz, announced her iteration of a Google Search Engine designed to search the web sites of the 50 United States. Tara must’ve spent some time, energy, and expertise, because it works like a charm. Her Custom Search Engine is another example of an end-user building a utility to help others navigate the Web infrastructure.
I covered this extensively in chapter 11 of my book UContent (2012) — check out my Custom Search Engine chapter links here.
Thanks Tara!
Nice infographic on UGC in various countries. Interview, too!
Posted: June 22, 2012 Filed under: Crowdsourcing, eWOM, user generated content | Tags: eWOM, Latin America Leave a commentJimena Urquijo, the VP Business Development of Kantar Media-TGI Latina, is interviewed on the importance of UGC and eWOM (electronic Word Of Mouth) in Latin America. Seems UGC is far from dead, but evolving in Latin America where the number of readers of UGC is surpassing the number in Germany and Great Britain.
Here’s the interview and infographic.
User-Generated Content Fun for Eggheads and non-Eggheads alike.
Posted: April 5, 2012 Filed under: user generated content | Tags: jaron lanier, tagging, tags Leave a commentIncidentally — I recently learned that “Egghead” was a pejoratve — but I wouldn’t be insulted in the least should anyone refer to me that way; I think it’s a compliment.
Whether you are analyzing the data from your observations of butterfly migration or transcribing the interviews from your ethnographic field study of punk rockers, Jonathan Feinberg invites you to take a break and chillax with Wordle. Mr. Feinberg, born in 1967, works for Google, but his interesting employment history includes writing for O’Reilly Media, programming for Microsoft, and occasionally playing drums with “They Might Be Giants” and “Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories.”
What’s Wordle?
I found Wordle while searching for information at Elsevier’s SciVerse Hub. (It’s a good thing I did. No one should be searching SciVerse Hub on a sunny Saturday.) At the bottom of the SciVerse home page was Wordle word cloud. The cloud beckoned, “Create Wordle from an Author’s Recent Publications.” The Author Wordle posted at http://www.hub.sciverse.com/action/home lets you enter an author’s name and then creates a word cloud composed of prominent words from that author’s publications [this is the Egghead Wordle]. Keep in mind that in a Wordle word cloud, as with any word cloud or tag cloud, the size of the words in the cloud is proportional to the number of times the word has been used in the body of content that Wordle is analyzing.
First in the list is an Author Wordle for Professor Jennifer Hedlund of CCSU’s Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice (I’ve worked with Professor Hedlund, CCSU is my home institution):
Second up is the Author Wordle for Jaron Lanier, winner of the IEEE’s Lifetime Career Award for contributions to Virtual Reality research:
And third among the images, because it’s all in good fun, is my Author Wordle:
Wordle isn’t just for authors.
Feinberg’s main Wordle lives at here. From there click “Create your own.” Just type in some words or paste in some text – anything will work (liner notes from a CD, full-text from your favorite book, a movie review, a transcript from “60 Minutes,” etc.).
This last Wordle was created from a script of an episode of the “Big Bang Theory” (note: Raj, who frequently whispers into the other characters’ ears, apparently had very few audible lines):
Enjoy Wordle!
my maps becomes my places
Posted: July 2, 2011 Filed under: maps, user generated content | Tags: Google maps Leave a commentNever content to remain static long enough for an author to reference it in a book, Google has changed the name of its “My Maps” app to “My Places.” You can still create a map (which is what My Maps was) by clicking the “Create New Map” link, but if you’re writing about My Maps — you’d better revise. The name change is confirmed at the Google LatLong blog.
more interesting sites for maps
Posted: June 8, 2011 Filed under: maps, user generated content | Tags: Google maps Leave a commentToday I “stumbled upon” a two sites featuring various user-generated maps; They are very interesting. Check out Geography Matters and Google Sightseeing.
crowdsourcing provides content for upscale company Tiffany
Posted: June 3, 2011 Filed under: maps, user generated content | Tags: crowdsourcing Leave a commentMashable reports that jewelry juggernaut Tiffany & Company has launched a site called “Love is Everywhere” that features a user-generated content component (another case of end users providing content that ultimately results in promoting a business. The user-generated component is a map
on which site visitors can identify a location, put their initials (and the initials of their partners) on the map, and add a very brief comment concerning why that locale is romantic.
memorial day user created content style
Posted: May 29, 2011 Filed under: user generated content | Tags: associated content, memorial day, poems, poetry Leave a commentSay what we will about user generated content; at its most elemental roots it permits everyone to have a voice. Here are some Memorial Day poems contributed by Associated Content’s (“the world’s largest site of community-created content”) site users.
collaborative site features user created content supported by professionally created content
Posted: May 26, 2011 Filed under: book reviews, social media, user generated content | Tags: book summaries, high school students, junior high school students, kickstarter, YA librarians, young adults Leave a commentThe 60Second Recap is a collaborative website that is suitable for ready reference with the younger crowd. Consisting of plot summaries for approximately 200 classic works of literature, the stories are distilled by offbeat, enthusiastic and erudite host Jenny Sawyer. 60Second Recap also invites users’ submissions in the “Club Recap”
area. The only criteria are that the users’ videos must be hosted at YouTube (and therefore, embeddable at 60Second Recap), and are of a duration of one to two minutes. The user generated content on the site, which is featured in “Club Recap” is growing rapidly. One of the most recent user-generated summaries is of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders where several fervent secondary school students recap the book. Because it is impossible to condense all that is important in any work in a minute, the summaries are usually broken into several one to two minute segments. One video segment covers plot, a separate video covers the characters, a third and fourth might address symbolism, others will cover the story’s themes, motifs, and conclusion. Great Expectations, 1984, A Streetcar Named Desire, Atlas Shrugged, and many other standard works from high school and college reading lists are presented in an engaging format. 60Second Recap is also launching a Kickstarter Campaign to keep the site going.
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