Explicitly Me - Rishi Lakhani (Rishil) » Content

Social Content – Sharing and Responsibility

rishil — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 12:47:54 +0000

*Update* The Digital Economy Bill is now expected to become law within the next 6 weeks. It introduces orphan works usage rights, which – unless amended, which HMG says it will not – will allow the commercial use of any photograph whose author cannot be identified through a suitably negligent search. That is potentially about 90% of the photos on the internet. Via Copyright Action.

With the explosion of social media and User generated Content, bloggers, reporters and businesses have access to a vast inventory of content for their production efforts. Take my site for example, most of the images are sourced free from Flickr – and I am not the only one using these. A large portion of the blogging community uses images from photo sharing websites such as Flickr and Picassa to spice up their posts. But professional news media also make use of this content – last year during the #uksnow hash tag trending period, a bunch of us uploaded Snow pics to flickr. In fact, if you google UK Snow Photos, most News sites have a collection of user submitted UK Snow photos. Pretty cool I think.

Problem? One of Copyright and Attribution

On the 5 – 6 January 2010 they (Independent) used the Flickr API to search for and display images of snow scenes in the UK – amongst those images displayed was one of mine which is clearly marked on Flickr as “all rights reserved”. They did not seek my permission for the use of my image. I am assuming they used the API without applying a filter on the licence type, this also means that other UK photographers may have had their copyrighted work used without permission; might be worth checking if you had any refers from the Independent on those days.

This was from a photographer who was annoyed at the use. The comments thread is over 250 long, and worth checking out. In the end, the Independednt ended paying out, for something that was a simple misunderstanding of the correct use of Socially Created content. Not only did they possibly alienate some of the UK Photographic Community, but created some negative press.

What Else Can Go Wrong?

Virgin Mobile Flickr Campaign

Photo Credit: Ian Wilson

In 2007, Virgin created a really good campaign, “Are you With Us or What?“. The campaign used Creative Commons photos from flickr to create a number of offline adverts as well as a full blown website (no longer operational). However, using flickr photos in a negative context can upset people, no matter what the license. There are also other considerations such as model releases and age of the models to be considered, regardless of the copyright notices issued, as Virgin in Australia found out.

Am I Being Insulted?

The above is a reaction by one of the models (underage) who realised that she was on one of the campaign boards. A massive Flickr conversation arose out of that one comment. Model release is not the responsibility of the photographer, but the user according to Dan Heller.

You photographed firemen from a street saving a baby’s life from a blazing fire, and sell it to the local newspaper for front-page coverage. Later, someone at the paper decides to use it in an ad to promote itself, and someone in the photograph objects to this, then you cannot be held responsible.

If you licensed an unreleased photograph of a person in a public place to a client that said they were going to use it in a school text book, but they use the image as part of their ad campaign for the company, then you are not responsible.

Dan keeps a very detailed section of his website on Model Release, usage and the Law.

Other Social Media Outlets

Social Voting sites such as reddit are full of breaking stories and interesting ideas / opinions coming to light daily. These only add to the plethora of fresh information available to the news researcher on a deadline or for a blogger with a writer’s block.

Redditor on CNN

(via http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/axe78/i_was_quoted_on_cnn/ )

Similarly, Twitter is another great place for journalists and bloggers to troll to find interesting quotes on the latest trending topics. In fact, the BBC have taken a hardline, and told journalists that not using social media is not just an option for research. Interestingly, the 2009 BBC editorial guidelines do make a note of copyright:

Material from Social Media
7.4.8 Although material, especially pictures and videos, on third party social media and other websites where the public have ready access may be considered to have been placed in the public domain, re-use by the BBC will usually bring it to a much wider audience. We should consider the impact of our re-use, particularly when in connection with tragic or distressing events. There are also copyright considerations.

What these considerations are, arent mentioned. (side note, Econsultancy has a pretty good opinion piece on the whole BBC / social media / reporting approach). I would like to really know what policies news media has in place for attribution for socially created content. Is it right to just rip it off just for reporting purposes? Maybe. I dont know. Am I happy for a tweet that was meant for just my followers to find its way into the press and then seen by millions? As a marketer probably. As an individual, I dont know. My tweets have been quoted by bloggers in the past, but I have always receive some sort of attribution, so I have never had a cause for concern.

Twitter Copyright

The whole “are tweets copy protected” debate is maybe a pointelss one, but it’s content I work hard to create. (well sort of ) Is anyone allowed to come and rip it off? Some interesting questions and thoughts at canyoucopyrightatweet.com. There is actually a way to issue a tweet license, as you can see from the image above – how legally binding that is, I dont know. See my Tweet Licence.

Of course the whole thing works the other way as well, with plenty of bloggers being sued left and right by big corporations for copyright violations. With respect to that, you may want to check out the EFF’s Blogger Rights page.

The Licences: Learn Them, Share Them

Creative Commons Licensing

…each of the six main licenses offered when you choose to publish your work with a Creative Commons license. We have listed them starting with the most accommodating license type you can choose and ending with the most restrictive license type you can choose. Source: Creative Commons Licenses

Side Issues

If you are aware of the whole Autogenerated content and Black Hat industry, you will probably have come across blogs littered with youtube videos and flickr images.

Ideally, a CC license is supposed to be symbiotic. The licensor gives up certain rights to their work and the licensee, in exchange for use of the work, makes certain the original author gets due credit and is rewarded for his or her effort. Spam bloggers, however, approach the CC license in bad faith, taking as much as they can while giving as little as possible back. Source: Plagiarism Today

However, what most scrapers dont realise, is that there are / may be creative commons licenses embedded in RSS feeds, and not adhering to those could land you up in court.

Content Farms – The Who, What and Why

rishil — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:17:09 +0000

SweatShop Labour Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikv/86969161/

The name “Content Farm” kind of describes it perfectly. What a strange concept, isn’t it? Or maybe not. Spammers and BlackHat SEOs have been auto generating low quality content for long tail search engine rankings for a while now. The content farm technique arguably takes this a few steps further by creating better quality (note – still questionable quality), user friendly content for the exact same reason.

Essentially certain companies have hired thousands of writers and video content producers to churn out content that is determined algorithmically:

The system starts with an automated process, crunching data and running it through an algorithm to identify story ideas that have the best chance of success. The algorithm factors in audience type, ability to attract advertising and potential for traffic. Source

The whole “Why” of the situation is pretty much easy to decipher. After all, there are over tens of billions of searches every month. That traffic has some serious value, especially for Informational Queries. After all, more than 80% of searches fall within this category. It doesn’t really matter if these sites aren’t selling anything, they are monetised either via affiliate links within content or by display ad revenue, selling value by every thousand impressions. Tell me numbers, you say? How much do they really make? At last estimate, one such network reported revenue of over £$200 million a year. EDIT NOTE: I screwed up the currency quoted. Thanks to Gil for picking up on that.

Quality based content farms aren’t a new concept either. Answers.com and About.com fit the bill and have been milling the content out for years. And google adsense revenue finances many of these sites. I would also argue the case for Mahalo and MoneySavingExpert being included in the label of content farms . MSE had over 71m Page Impressions December 2009, while Mahalo averages 15Million unique visitors and over 1Million Adsense Clicks a month. However, I doubt that the writers / developers of this content are paid anywhere near that in perspective:

Demand pays from $0 (with revenue sharing) to $100 per piece; it averages at $20. Copy editors make $2.50-$3 per piece, which works out to $15-20 an hour. He said these people like to wake up and know there’s work they can do—there are 100k assignments waiting for takers right now—while they wait for old, human editors to respond to pitches. He said they also like being paid twice a week. Kydd said Demand employed 4,500 creators (text and video) and 400 copy editors in the last 30 days. Source

What do you think of these “content farms”?

McDonaldisation of Content - Is it a Pretty Picture? Photo Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/611540734/

Boutique content sites. The rise of content sweatshops like Demand Media will keep putting pressure on content producers who actually offer value. It’s McContent versus the mom and pop diner. Who wins? You make the call (I hope I’m wrong, since I’m the latter). – Ian Lurie, Conversation Marketing in 11 Marketing Trends to Ignore in 2010

So what really scares me? It’s the rise of fast food content that will surely, over time, destroy the mom and pop operations that hand craft their content today. It’s the rise of cheap, disposable content on a mass scale, force fed to us by the portals and search engines. Michael Arrington, Techcrunch in The End of HandCrafted Content

…algorithm-aided human writing will meet human-aided algorithmic curation; quality will rise – Jeff Jarvis, via Twitter

I am not sure what stance to take as yet, however I must admit to lean towards Ian and Michael. Niche content has been a great opportunity for small businesses, and these moms and pops stand to lose out to assembly line content.

How to Create Your Own

Ok, dont take this tongue-in-cheek approach too seriously, but you can build your own content network too at a fraction of the cost. Yo may not have a “Content determination Algo”, but you do have access to a number of free SEO Tools that can help you determine long tail content. At the same time you can get poor / average quality content as well. The example below describes how to put it all together.

(I am running a test using this technique on Sookie Stackhouse Novels)

I want to create a content rich site geared solely for search engine traffic. The site is focussed on Plumbing. Lets take one of my favourites long tail content research tools : Google Suggest

Google Suggest Long Tail Content - Plumbing

Aha! I now have nine possible topics that I should optimise for. So what do I do next? Well I have the list, now I need someone to actually write the content. So I use any of the services that help me do that at a very low cost. Some that I have used are below:

Typically you can get a 200-400 word article under $4(!). So for 9 articles I would expect to pay around $30-$35.All I need to do now is sit back, wait for the content, approve it and add it to my Plumbing Content site. Of course, as an SEO I know the importance of page titles, URLs, Headings etc, and use all of that to make the content as possible a match to search engine requirements. I havent tried it, but have been reccomended Content Now as a low cost resource as well.

There you go. I have my own long tail research tool, and my own content mill, all on a budget!

Balancing the Equation

The posts below are for suggested by Gil Reich, who works at Answers.com:

Content? WTF is that Anyway?

rishil — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:53:19 +0000

WTF Content Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neonihil/3294600532/

Ever since I have joined the SEO industry various techniques and ideas tend to be the flavour of the month. And as we learn more, as we pseudo test more, these ideas evolve over time. Different schools of thought crop up and in fact there aren’t any real agreements about guaranteed routes to killer rankings. Even a survey of 72 well known SEOs didn’t manage to get to a 90% agreement. What does this tell us about our industry? Glaringly one thing stands out. The lack of authoritative information. And one of the most confusing concepts that you have to present to clients is “great content” is necessary for good rankings.

What is the deal behind “great content”? What does that mean anyway? For years we have been hearing about “content is king” and “create unique content”. What does that mean? Why, what is the importance of content?

Well for starters, we know that search engines filter through similar or copied content. I don’t argue that they do it well, but the fact exists that they do. I actually think many SEO’s misrepresent the two varied concepts, uniqueness and greatness. Uniqueness is the ability to separate your content for that of another site. Mr Spam Killer himself describes the potential of having unique content for SEO purposes in an article from 2006 where he is describing capturing long tail traffic.

In general, any time you look for an answer or some information and can’t find it, that should strike you as an opportunity.

Sometimes it’s easier to take a series of smaller steps instead of jumping to your final goal in one leap.

But I am not interested in talking about the uniqueness of content. I want to talk about the “greatness” of it. In the same article, I think Matt puts across the point, albeit slightly disguised:

The utility of an article is paramount. If you write 2000 words about mortgage loans and never discuss the industry landscape or impart some useful, concrete knowledge to your reader, that should set off a warning flag in your head.

Jill Whalen Argued for good content way back as 2001:

If you spend the time it takes to create great content, you’ll naturally be able to obtain high rankings.

What many SEO’s sometimes fail to do is they don’t look beyond the existence of necessary pages of content. They fail to work out the “link worthiness” or the potential user interactions or call to actions that make some content “great”. Brent Csutoras has some very useful tips in creating good content over at Search Engine Land (BTW case and point – that was good content hence I linked to it!). UPDATE: Just saw this post via Twitter and it makes really good reading : Writing for the Web: The Right Strategy

So as SEO’s where should we turn to find “great content”? Well as a starter, big brand SEO’s shouldn’t find it so hard. Many big brands work with large PR firms who specialise in writing stories that catch the attention of news publishers. These are the guys you need to work with. They specialise in getting into people’s minds. They are the ones with really good distribution channels. So what if some of them don’t “just don’t get” online marketing? Teach them some of your tricks. Let them get into the head of a link baiter. And you in return learn what they have spent their lives doing. Build a two way relationship that works to creating content that isn’t just publicity material, but often highly link worthy. (more on PR+Linkbuilding=Win for another post )

For small businesses, sometimes, they need to leverage their internal skills and sometimes just get a bit creative.

In short, Great Content (to me anyway) is any information created that serves a useful purpose for the community it was created for. It inspires conversation, thought processes and encourages the reader to take some sort of an action. It could amuse, inform, shock, amaze or inform, whatever the reaction, it increases the chance of the reader to SHARE that information.

However, remember, just creating good content isn’t enough, you need to know how to seed it. If you know Tad (@onreact on twitter) then you know his 2.0 blog. He has a pretty interesting article Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media. In it, he inadvertently references what I call the “seeding effect”. Some good tips there, and I will hopefully soon follow up with a post on seeding…

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