The Chicago Tribune had to act quickly this week after realizing one of the images it had posted and labeled user-generated content (UGC) was actually an image under copyright. The picture was posted under the heading Awkward Tombstones in a special section the paper and its affiliates are running showcasing UGC.

The image shows a very distraught child in front of a headstone that reads Santa Claus 1836-2000. The news outlet uses images from Flikr as opposed to accepting reader’s submissions as many other newspapers do. This method obviously does not involve verifying authenticity and put the Chicago Tribune in a very undesirable position. (more…)

Hunch.com helps users search for answers - but it’s not a search engine. Having spent the last year in development, Hunch aims to supply participants with user-generated advice on lifestyle and consumer.

The detailed profiles of each participant, generated from a list of hundreds of questions, will provide Hunch with in-depth demographic profiles that it hopes will, “provide a kind of shortcut through human expert systems,” says Hunch founder Caterina Fake. (more…)

User-generated content (UGC) is quickly being seen as a money grab for many online marketers. Some consumers are excited by this, as the project or contest usually lends itself to the opportunity of regular, everyday people making a buck or two. However, others are quickly becoming more cautious of their online community experiences for possible marketing predators. (more…)

Brands that classify themselves as having a non-traditional market, yet are looking for greater participation, support or involvement can still use social media strategies to attract online communities. They just need to make themselves accessible. (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…)

ClusterShot, a side venture of Canadian web development company silverorange, is a new online marketplace for buying and selling stock photographs.

While they are not trying to reinvent the wheel, ClusterShot certainly aims to hit a niche market on the web of amateur photography. The site offers a bit more competition to dominant forces like Getty Images-owned iStockphoto. Although the website claims to ultimately have more in common with eBay. (more…)

More and more readers are talking about the decline of print media, and its growing competition on the web.

Publications like The Rocky Mountain News and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer have disappeared, and even the great Canwest media empire is walking a line dangerously close to bankruptcy. Online - new user-generated hyperlocal news sites are popping up in an attempt to replace them, when profit seems to be a rare commodity. (more…)

Today’s the day for all things green and Irish and Cleveland.com (the online version of the Cleveland Plain Dealer) is asking its readers to submit images and videos from the day’s festivities.

Like many U.S. cities, Cleveland is home to a St. Patrick’s day parade, which brings the Irish and their fan club out in force to drink green beer and dress like gaudy leprechauns.

Other cities with similar opportunities to post photos of your ‘Irish’ friends for the world to see: Des Moines, Iowa, and Boston, Mass. Of course, there’s always Flickr too. (more…)

Getty Images has launched its long awaited Flickr Collection. This new collection of photography is for sale on the Getty Images website. All images are taken from the popular photo sharing website Flickr.

Some of the content on Flickr is high quality and very original. Getty Images is tapping this resource of talent and creative expression to offer its clients a much larger catalogue of images. The Flickr Collection currently has about 5,299 images and Getty says that number will grow by thousands each month. (more…)

Skittles set its new website up as a bold experiment with social media as it gave over control of content to users posting comments and media files about the candy. It was meant to encourage as much conversation as possible, so the company put zero restrictions on what could be posted to the website.

But is all publicity good publicity?

News of the new website has spread wildly across the Internet. The page contains a link to Flickr, the Skittles YouTube channel and Skittles Facebook page. The Facebook page was nearing 600,000 friends by this morning Monday and the Twitter feed on the Skittles home page was generating thousands of tweets every hour. (more…)