USER LABOR
BURAK ARIKAN & ENGIN ERDOGAN
www.userlabor.org

NEW LIVING
always online
laptops, smart phones, wifi, gsm, gps
information heavy
generated elsewhere by institutions, people, sensors, machines
non-linear
hyperlinked
non-private
status updates, micro-blogs, photo tagging
machine readable
micro formats, activity streams, RSS feeds
hyper-public
over-participating, like, comment, share, vote
...

MEDIATED BY
PRIVATE SOCIAL SERVICES
* Logo cloud by Ludwig Gatzke. flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss

MEDIATED BY
PRIVATE SOCIAL SERVICES
* Logo cloud by Ludwig Gatzke. flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss

FREE TO USE, BUT PAID WITH DATA
“The people who are using it
are paying us with
information.”
– Joshua Schachter
Del.icio.us, 2005

FREE TO USE, BUT PAID WITH DATA
“It is an ad-supported
service. It is a free service.”
– Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook, 2007

SECURED BY ONE-CLICK CONTRACTS

engagement/use FOR A LONG TAIL OF USERS
users

engagement/use FOR A LONG TAIL OF USERS
power users
users

engagement/use FOR A LONG TAIL OF USERS
power users
casual users
users

engagement/use FOR A LONG TAIL OF USERS
power users
casual users
lurkers
users

engagement/use FOR A LONG TAIL OF USERS
publishing, remixing, marketing...
power users
casual users
lurkers
users

engagement/use FOR A LONG TAIL OF USERS
publishing, remixing, marketing...
power users
liking, sharing, commenting...
casual users
lurkers
users

engagement/use FOR A LONG TAIL OF USERS
publishing, remixing, marketing...
power users
liking, sharing, commenting...
casual users
reading, clicking...
lurkers
users

SUSTAINABLE?
service provider user
tools content
protocols opinions
interfaces tastes
storage effects
hardware relationships

USER LABOR MARKUP LANGUAGE (ULML)
<actions>
<reactions>
<network>

<actions>
<item object="link" verb="like">3</item>
* Object and verb attributes are adopted from the activitystrea.ms project.

<actions>
<item object="photo" verb="comment">3</item>

<actions>
<item object="status" verb="update">1</item>

<reactions>
<item object="status" verb="like">1</item>

<reactions>

<network>
<item object="friends">621</item>

<network>
<item object="following">202</item>
<item object="followers">893</item>

ULML
<record>
<actions>
<item object="status" verb="post">124</item>
<item object="link" verb="share">10</item>
<item object="photo" verb="tag">42</item>
<item object="photo" verb="comment">15</item>
</actions>
<reactions>
<item object="status" verb="like">120</item>
<item object="photo" verb="comment">92</item>
<item object="photo" verb="tag">10</item>
</reactions>
<network>
<item object="connection">615</item>
<item object="density">0.2</item>
</network>
</record>

ULML
<record>
<actions>
<item object="status" verb="post">124</item>
<item object="link" verb="share">10</item>
<item object="photo" verb="tag">42</item>
<item object="photo" verb="comment">15</item>
</actions>
<reactions>
<item object="status" verb="like">120</item>
<item object="photo" verb="comment">92</item>
<item object="photo" verb="tag">10</item>
</reactions>
<network>
<item object="connection">615</item>
<item object="density">0.2</item>
</network>
</record>

twitter.com/arikan (2008)
interconnections between people who are followed by arikan

Would you share your
user labor metrics?

BURAK ARIKAN
arikan@burak-arikan.com
www.userlabor.org