digital ecologist (beta)

“We don’t employ translators as each and every user is a translator.”

John Maeda announced in his blog this new website for Manga (Japanese comics) where users can create their own translations of the books (after buying them) and then sell them on manganovel.com –although you get paid in points, which you can only use to buy more Manga.

Interesting use of ’social media/user generated content’ by appealing to manga fans. The site says this is to help ‘everyone’ enjoy Manga, but it sure look like a strategic attempt to help break into new markets or increase Manga’s market share (in Japan Manga is a + $400B industry).

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Last year, as I was researching UGC (user generated content) I starting to observe that some physical goods manufacturers are adopting a form of user-generated content. They allow consumers to create (at least to some extent) the goods they purchase. Instead of having factories produce mass articles determined by a few producers, could factories become on-demand production houses based on the individual designs of their customers?

Trendwatching.com calls this trend MIY “make it yourself”, where users can design their own furniture, jewelry, and other goods, while the business serves as the production center, converting the digital information to actual products. An interesting example of this is Ponoko.com , an online factory in New Zealand, where you can design your own furniture among other goods. This one goes beyond the standard t-shirt and mug design shops like cafepress.com

NY Times David Pogue’s review of the Flip continues to attract a lot of reaction. See the follow up post ‘Why There Aren’t more Flips“. Funny how this little thing can create some much reaction. It’s premise is SIMPLICITY (even though sometimes it fails to deliver on that). This principle simplicity seems to the key to success when it come to technology and it’s most iconic example: the iPod.

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I went to a lecture with Ellen Lupton at PNCA in Portland (great space, by the way). Lupton is a star designer and she was quite entertaining to listen to. Besides some funny insights on the perils of the design of women bras, toasters and a not-so-convincing case for luggage sans wheels, Lupton focused her talk on the idea of the DIY revolution (the subject of her latest book). This is not different from the user-generated content movement that we’ve examined over the last two quarters (through theory in the UGC class, and through practice in digital storytelling class).

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Thanks for your continued participation on discussing User Generated Content at whatisugc.wordpress.com. The quarter at UW is almost done and here’s the result of my research in a 7 minute video.