Today's @digitalaxle press release re SEO, Usability Consulting gig with Enterprise Mashup leader, Convertigo: http://ow.ly/1tIgR

By 2013, 155
million of US Internet users will consume some form of user-created
content, up from 116 million in 2008 — and the number of user-generated
content creators will grow by similar proportions, reaching 115 million
in 2013, up from 83 million in 2008.
according to eMarketer.

And everyone loves it. I mean, it's cheap, it drives traffic and engagement, and it can be darn fun to play with. Like putty. This of course assumes that you don't look too deeply into it and try to analyze the psychological identity of the creator, that is, the American public — which I don't recommend doing, ever.

But not everyone, apparently. Advertisers, fearing its "inherently unpredictable" nature, tend to steer clear of it, which puts a lot of pressure on site publishers and social media channels to give them safe havens. But do those really exist? How do you juggle "true" UGC with the need to moderate for quality and relevance?

The Outside Lands Festival was held this weekend in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. I have two words to describe this event: Brr, and brr. Some other individuals who are better qualified to describe the experience (as they actually attended) might be more exuberant in their reactions: Awesome! Amazing! Rad!

In any case, the 3-day event made Net history by being the first "digitally mashed up" (no, not moshed up, but that’s fun too) concert to be 100% documented on the web – by the thousands that did attend.

CrowdFire – sponsored by Federated Media, Microsoft, and Intel – is a real-time "digital media mashup"
of all of the varied media generated at the live show, including
camera-phone pictures, hand-held digital-video recordings, blog posts
and Twitters, reported AdAge.

Participants upload their digital content via kiosk pavilions at the concert. They are encouraged to tag the photos and videos so that other users can conduct specific searches, e.g., "bitchin" "dude" "stage one" from the aggregated content.

It’s basically a social network for concertgoers, said Rick Farman, co-founder of Superfly
Productions, creators of Outside Lands and co-creators of the Bonnaroo
Music Festival. "…A perfect synthesis of music, online networking
and face-to-face fun," he boasted.

Social networks are on the move…to our cell phones, reports the New York Times. They astutely note that there are 3.3 billion cellphone subscribers, which is way more than the total number of Internet users, and way, way more than the number of online social networkers. That all adds up to a pretty penny, once monetized.(Ah, but how, they ask. That comes later.)

Let’s talk about what separates the two – the glaring difference – mobility. For countries with low Internet penetration, a mobile phone is often the only way to get online, so access to social networks is of course going to be through them – which is where mobile-friendly interfaces are going to come into play. But there’s something else that mobile has going for it that PC’s don’t: you’ve got it with you. (Nearly) all the time. And, due to GPS and related technologies, it knows where you are – which means your friends will too.

Is this really something that we want? I have a hard enough time hiding from people – my little white lies are really going to suffer in credibility if someone can tell exactly where I am. "Um, I can’t come tonight, I’m staying late at work." "Oh really? Are you working at Dragon Bar these days?" Caught.

Like it or not, cell phone social networks are arriving. With about 30 startups, like GyPSii from Amsterdam and MyGamma in Singapore, battling to grab market share and introduce new technologies, it’ll happen sooner rather than later.

And what a market share it is and will be, according to market research company Informa Telecoms: about 50 million
people, or about 2.3%of all mobile users, already use the
cellphone for social networking, from chat services to multimedia
sharing, and the penetration rate would mushroom
to at least 12.5% in 5 years.

clipped from

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I just got this email from Gmail, or at least someone named deviantartstarlove.amanda@gmail.com. (Giving me ideas for a new porn name, at least.) Asking for personal information and so on, so of course a red flag went off immediately. Darn spam, I thought.

And from gmail, no less. My trusted source for many a month! I’ll have to start using Facebook messaging instead of personal email, I thought. And wiki message boards instead of work email.

Really? Has it come to that yet? Email has become outdated for some, a pain the arse for others, and just plain ugly. It’s not just phishing, spoofing, and spam anymore. It’s the inefficiencies of one-way communication – no matter how fast it purports to be – and the one-dimensional nature of the sender and recipients.

But social networking sites are starting to change all that. As a direct competitor to email, they are still struggling, but features that they offer are beginning to look mighty nice to email users. Kind of like when all the ladies suddenly sprouted red lips in Pleasantville and the men just didn’t know what to do. And now the tables are turning, and email provider’s are trying to "steal some of social networking’s thunder" by adding features, like Yahoo’s Friend Finder.

Roger Matus writes:

Well — with all the advertising revenue at stake — I am not shocked
that the big email providers, such as Yahoo, Google, AOL, and
Microsoft’s HOTmail,  plan to add social networking features.  Imagine
reading an email from a friend and being able to find out instantly if
he/she is available for an IM chat, left an "away message," has
uploaded a video, or is planning a big event.

Will this make email sexy again, asked the Wall Street Journal.      Was it ever?