Google has partnered with Livehindustan.com for a user-generated content (UGC) contest to increase content in Hindi on the Web. The ‘Hai Baaton Main Dum?‘ contest, which translated into English means ‘Do words have weight?’, began on December 7, 2009. (more…)

Facebook has just made it easier for its over 350 million users to limit and protect who sees their comments, videos, photographs and other personal information by introducing more options for privacy settings this past Wednesday. (more…)

YouTube has recently announced that they are officially serving well over a billion views per day and are more committed than ever before to providing its community with the same founding principles that informed the site early on. (more…)

This week Google Inc.’s YouTube struck a deal with Time Warner Inc. to feature program clips from a range of its cable networks including CNN and the Cartoon Network. The deal promises both parties a portion of the ad revenue and brings into question the life-span of user-generated content (UGC). (more…)

Microsoft’s search engine Bing, advertised as a decision engine that finds and organizes the answers you need to make faster more informed decisions, is launching a video jingle contest. The Bing Jingle contest will make use of its new YouTube channel in hopes of finding the perfect user-generated “Bingle” from within the social network community. (more…)

The newly launched Bing search engine wasted no time in entering into the user-generated content (UGC) contest foray for user attention and retention. Bing is the latest incarnation of Microsoft that in the past has produced the search engines MSN and Windows Live. One purely aesthetic yet defining aspect of the Bing user interface is the constantly changing background image; it will be this image that is at the heart of the contest. (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…)

Google launched its new browser, Chrome, back in September of 2008 and since then it hasn’t really picked up the following that it had hoped. It seems that people aren’t recognizing the Chrome icon. So the Google Chrome team has decided to let its users take a crack at it themselves.

The icon which some have said resembles a Pokeball - personally I feel it’s a lot closer to the old Milton Bradley electronic memory game, Simon - does not seem to be having the lasting impression on users that a good icon should. Quality icon’s can replace a brand’s title and simply stand on its own: think Nike or McDonald’s. (more…)

Internet access stretches farther then ever before and it is time that companies began considering the multilingual depths of their online community. To attract a global consumer base that is engaging in user-generated content (UGC) on a social platform you have to speak to each individual cultural group.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is not a new buzz word, but international SEO is what some are calling its newest revolution. It means that brands that maintain English-only websites are no longer doing a good enough job at attracting, engaging and including the full potential of their customer base. (more…)

Anyone who has an social network, a blog, a message board or any other form of online discussion by users is concerned with moderation. Users can upload photos, videos and text at anytime of the day, from all around the world and that can be frightening for any brand. (more…)