These are my links for December 3rd through December 4th:

  • Crowdsourcing business documents – Spudaroo is yet another crowd-sourcing website, but this crosses contest with Elance, by asking writers to submit articles, blogs and business plans against a client brief and the client selects a 'winner' to pay a set fee too. As a professional writer I worry about this trend: the marketplace is great for clients, but exploits out of work freelancers by getting them to complete work they are likely to not get paid for and making a skilled profession into an 'X Factor' style competition.
  • GooTube mulls fee-TV streams – Looks like Google's YouTube are looking to cut a deal to charge folks $2 to stream a TV show fresh off telly just once – yet the iTunes model is a download-to-own model for a similar price. Four years on since I last worked in IPTV, it's the old chestnut again of DRM and how people want to access and keep content. My bet is that the free-to-stream is the only model viewers will stomach (unless for 'premium' content like football matches), but download-to-own, following the DVD model, will have some legs – but maybe only very short legs.
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These are my links for November 2nd from 09:17 to 12:36:

  • User-generated video to broadcast on Dublin streets this Christmas – Here's an example of web culture traversing to mainstream culture: Zozzy TV will allow people to "streetcast": broadcast their 30 sec films on a screen in Dublin's major shopping streets (interspersed with adverts, presumably). One to bring to other shopping districts?
  • Major console games maker mulls a move from UK to Ireland – Scotland is losing its status as a producer of quality games as more developer threaten to leave to exploit tax breaks in other nations. This time Realtime Worlds threaten to move to Dublin – not known as a centre for games as yet but it's certainly developing the infrastructure for a digital production economy.
  • Report claims illegal downloaders buy more music – A report by lefty-think-thank Demos, paid for by Virgin Media, claims downloaders spend 50% (£33) more on music each year, and would download more if prices reduced to 45p a track. I'd question this research generally though: Virgin have lots to gain from a decrease in peer-to-peer traffic clogging up their network, and it's based on what people say they would do rather than proving behaviour and outcomes.
  • 12 Essential Plugins that Extend WordPress as a CMS – If you're a web developer working with clients to develop websites built on the awesome, free WordPress system, these plug-ins are great for increasing the editorial rights, changing images and adding custom forms amongst other things.
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