Monday, March 29, 2010
Defeating the Dark Side of Social Media
I came across this article in Business Week, which I found interesting about social media and companies. Even though, social media has been around for many years now, companies are still struggling with the expanded reach of users-generating content. It seems that companies are always slower to catch up then consumers. While I was looking for inspiration for my project on user-generated content and tourism, I was really surprised how far behind some companies are. The companies seem to either do it poorly or just pretend it doesn't exist. Although, I think as social media increases more companies will be unable to ignore it.
talking about the dark side of user created content You should also check out this site. Demandstudios They are a new article generation mill meant for producing everything from travel articles to articles on how to get the most tooth paste out of a tube. The content they generate across the web gets more hits than all disney properties, time media and other big name media companies combined. They hire thousands of real writers but only pay them pennies a word instead of the usual dollar or more per word traditional media writers are expected to be paid.
ReplyDeleteThe specificity of the articles they ask people to write allows for laser accurate advertising. The company generates huge advertising revenues off of the articles they generate for distribution across the web. You may have thought you were reading an article recently about how much someone loved a certain city in france but now it is more than likely that it was just created as a vehicle to sell adspace on.