If the British Conservative government wins the next election, they will hold a competition for web developers to create a website that harnesses the “collective wisdom of the British people”. (more…)

A new video contest is encouraging Americans to describe how they picture America in the future when understanding and equality will play a larger role in the country. The website Imagine 2050 was built to encourage candid conversation about ethnic diversity and what it will mean to America in the year 2050 when it’s estimated less then half of all Americans will be considered white.

The contest asks visitors to the website to upload videos between 30 seconds and two minutes long for a chance to win $500, a Flip camera and the opportunity to have their videos showcased on the Imagine 2050 website. (more…)

Flu season is approaching and the American government is taking a new approach to making sure the public is safe this year. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHC) for the U.S. government, says an online video contest that spreads awareness about how to stay safe this year is one way to a safer America. The department announced the contest earlier this month on its website Flu.gov, a website dedicated to providing up to date information on H1N1, avian and other pandemic flu concerns. (more…)

Iran’s election last week could be a turning point for the nation. On June 12, the nation held its general elections to elect a new president. This happens every four years in Iran just as it does in America. Another surprising similarity is the impact social networks are having on the elections, but in a very different way.

Late last month the ruling government under the leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blocked Facebook inside the country. The block was noticed after rival candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi started a Facebook page to generate support for himself and his party. The Facebook page had only 5,000 supporters when Facebook was banned. (more…)

How do you take a mission that could be arguably of no use to the human race that is wrought with danger and potential peril around every corner and get the world to support it 100 per cent? I recommend a user-generated content (UGC) campaign that includes a break dancing astronaut.

This may sound ridiculous but it is exactly what NASA has done to great effect. The website looks like an attempt to inform and sway public opinion in favour of the latest round of lunar and other space missions. Some of the plans outlined on the very simple website include establishing a “sustained presence” on the moon and a need to develop a number of pieces of equipment that will make this possible. The website also mentions the plans for the next decade that include working toward an overall goal of putting a man on Mars in the next 50 years. (more…)

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has launched a new contest to get ideas on how the world might become free of nuclear weapons by 2020.

By holding a video contest a group can generate a lot more than just interest in a cause. Because contests generate material a group can use in further promotions, a video contest could become a valuable source of cost effective promotional material. Most foundations, charities, non-profits and not-for-profits run on very strict budgets and rely on donations to survive, a contest like this may yield material that otherwise would have cost thousands of dollars to produce. (more…)

A European political movement is asking its supporters to support its efforts by designing advertisements for the campaign. The Libertas party is hoping to be the first pan-European party to run candidates in all member states of the European Union. It wants to change the European Union (EU) fundamentally to give more power back to the participating countries. The website that is allowing users to create their own ads is UK built micro-site called ThisAd. (more…)

User-generated content (UGC) may be the best example of freedom of speech there is. This may be the reason why social network Plurk was recently banned in China. Plurk is a micro-blogging website that works a lot like Twitter. Users sign in and post short updates with a maximum of 140 characters. The website never really caught on in North America as it did in other parts of the world.  Asian countries Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines make up the top three countries for user concentration.

In North America and most other places in the world websites like Veoh, Bebo, Twitter, and Flickr are very common and no one outside the advertising community cares when a user logs on to the websites. However, sites like these are considered a threat by the Chinese government because they allow for the free flow of information and ideas. (more…)

What has been called “the world’s most notorious file sharing site,” The Pirate Bay, have been convicted by a Swedish court of contributory copyright infringement and each of the accused sentenced to a year in prison.

Pirate Bay administrators Fredik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde, along with Carl Lundstrom; who was accused of funding the five-year-old operation, were ordered to pay damages of $3.6 million, to a list of entertainment companies. (more…)

The British government confirmed this week that it’s looking into monitoring social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace. The Globe and Mail reported this week on the new proposal that could affect the way millions of people communicate. (more…)