Also: Babelgum shuffles in new chief exec | Libraries explore Second Life | The problem with Backfence | That iPhone thing
I know we've certainly had enough of the term. Research by media consultancy Conchango - whose clients include Associated Newspapers, the FT and Vodafone - found that one in five people now contribute material to sites but at the same time 99% of people don't trust content on blogs and forums by their friends and the rest of the public.
There's a hunger for "expert generated content" evident in the trust factor assigned to the BBC, who 58% trust to provide accurate news. Sky and ITV are trusted by 15% and Wikipedia by 2%. Sixty-two percent of the 1,000 people surveyed said they used news websites but most preferred traditional publishing sites.
Conchango's chief executive commented that "UGC has its place in the form of feedback and dedicated forums, however users want to be sure that their 'news'€™ is coming from someone that has done their due-diligence and knows their topic".
There's some level of presumption about exactly what UGC is here, I think. There are plenty of bloggers operating outside the traditional publishing business; and the best of those bloggers "have done their due diligence" and know their subject inside-out, arguably more than a journalist that might pick a story up for a few hours. I'm tired of the obsession with classifying what is UGC and therefore what is 'amateur', versus everything else. There's way more of an overlap than that. Let's move on please.
Babelgum shuffles in new chief exec
Web video service Babelgum has appointed Valerio Zingarelli chief executive officer following Erik Lumer's sideways move to focus on product development. Babelgum says it is in phase two of its development, which means growing its staff to more than 100 as it tries to fulfill an ambitious goal of providing niche content for global audiences. Priorities are to continue building the range of content on the site, part of which will be done by inviting small content producers to upload their stuff directly, and through a global marketing campaign. Zingarelli is a former global director of networks and service of Vodafone and was also a board member of Fastweb, the Italian telecoms giant owned by Babelgum founder Silvio Scaglia. (Babelgum)
Libraries explore Second Life
Second Life holds a wealth of potential for British libraries, we are told, with potential for improving networking with other organisations, distance learning and administration. The Umbrella 2007 conference, organised by the Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals, included a session that met in Second Life. There could be specific benefits for distance learners, shy or busy students or those who feel more confident communicating virtually than in real life. Others said "The Reference Desk" is a useful tool for meeting other people in the sector; the space is part of InfoIsland where universities including Stanford, Harvard and the Open University run virtual classrooms and offer audio books and various other research materials. (CILIP)
The problem with Backfence
Scott Karp on Publishing 2.0 makes some great points about the demise of Backfence, the citizen journalism network that dissolved last week. He's done some hyper-Googling to determine that Backfence's profile simply wasn't high enough when searching for Reston, one of the first towns where the network started. More damning, he says, is the insight you can pull from Google Database which shows the majority of Reston-related searches were for simple things like hotels, golf and restaurants. Perhaps citizen media just isn't high enough up the agenda?
"The problem with all the thinking on hyperlocal is that it's focused on what we think people need, i.e. more local news reporting, not what they want, i.e. help getting things done - web publishers figured out 10 years ago how to give people what they want, and then Google stepped in and took care of the rest," said Karp.
"That doesn't mean that hyperlocal can't evolve in the 2.0 era -- but it needs to do so with a keen understanding of how the Web works, and not a nostalgia for how local newspapers used to work." (Publishing 2.0)
Oh, and that iPhone thing
Steve Jobs was at the Apple store in Regent's Street in London yesterday. That, combined with the scheduled closure of the store next Monday (though I can't find evidence of that), has set off a Mexican wave of blog speculation that an announcement on the UK iPhone is imminent. Maybe. (ifoAppleStore)
