Comments on: We Salute You http://www.consolationchamps.com/2008/07/11/we-salute-you/ Top of the B-List Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:26:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: James McNally http://www.consolationchamps.com/2008/07/11/we-salute-you/comment-page-1/#comment-20234 James McNally Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:34:35 +0000 http://www.consolationchamps.com/?p=1328#comment-20234 This blog is actually part of a much larger project called the Academy of the Recent Past (<a href="http://www.academyoftherecentpast.com/">http://www.academyoftherecentpast.com/</a>) who collect material and put out books of the stuff. The other blogs look pretty funny as well (stuff about 80s music, summer camp, bar mitzvahs, etc.).<br><br>I'm still on the fence regarding "user-generated content" though. How do other people feel about this sort of thing? A company gathering all this material together through the internet and then publishing it for a profit? I don't know what the terms are for this specific company. Maybe they do pay their contributors. But this new business model seems to be popping up everywhere, powered by the incredibly easy group-forming abilities of the internet (a phrase I have borrowed from Clay Shirky's latest book, Here Comes Everybody). Is it legal? Sure. Is it ethical? Well, probably. But there still seems something slightly skeevy about it. This blog is actually part of a much larger project called the Academy of the Recent Past (http://www.academyoftherecentpast.com/) who collect material and put out books of the stuff. The other blogs look pretty funny as well (stuff about 80s music, summer camp, bar mitzvahs, etc.).

I'm still on the fence regarding “user-generated content” though. How do other people feel about this sort of thing? A company gathering all this material together through the internet and then publishing it for a profit? I don't know what the terms are for this specific company. Maybe they do pay their contributors. But this new business model seems to be popping up everywhere, powered by the incredibly easy group-forming abilities of the internet (a phrase I have borrowed from Clay Shirky's latest book, Here Comes Everybody). Is it legal? Sure. Is it ethical? Well, probably. But there still seems something slightly skeevy about it.

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