newly ancient

BusinessWeek has an interesting chart showing who participates online. For the most part, this is information we already knew. However, the presentation and categories are very interesting. One interesting thing is the great equalizer of collectors. In almost all cases, seniors participate significantly less. That changes when it comes to collecting, where they equal young youth. Another interesting trend that may support the idea of teenagers being self absorbed is the creators vs. critics situation. While young youth are 34 percent of creators, they account for only 24 percent of critics. Perhaps this points to the fact that as we age, we are less likely to create and more likely to criticize. Well, being a youth I suppose I have to criticize the BusinessWeek chart for being very eye-catching but harder to understand. Therefore, I mocked the data up in Google Docs for your visualizing pleasure:

Hat tip to Will for bringing this to my attention.

Urbis is a cool web 2.0 writing review site. Basically, the premise of the site isn’t very new. Essentially, it is peer review with sprinkles on top. However, it is executed in a particularly effective way. When you register, you can post your writing for other people to review. You can also review other writing that has been posted. When you do, you receive credits. Those credits can be used to unlock reviews of your own writing. This way, you are encouraged to review other user’s writing and to not simply leach off the community. Overall, the site offers a good service.

When I look at a social media site, I like to think of it as a financial investment. You put something in and hopefully get back more than you put in. For instance, in the case of Digg, you submit articles (the expense). You can also view what other people have dugg to find good news (the revenue). If you are especially lucky, one of your articles will reach the top and receive thousands of views (the jackpot). Just ask your stock broker, the guarantee of a return and the chance of an immense profit is a good investment.

Now, turn back to Urbis. Our investment is the time we spend writing reviews. In return, we receive credits which can be used to purchase the reviews of our own work. However, here’s the catch. When buying reviews, we spend 30% then the person writing the review received. Why the processing fee? It’s not as though there is some brokerage that we need to pay? (This is all hypothetical money) In fact, you are guaranteed to lose credits if you buy the exact same review you wrote. Possibly, this could be to encourage users to write more reviews. However, I am certainly not happy with an investment where I am guaranteed to lose credits. Are you?

Despite the strange credit charges, the system is pretty slick with all the coolest social features like tags, comments, and goals. However, there is too much emphasis placed upon writing length. For reviewing, this makes sense since you had to spend more time reading the original piece. However, when buying reviews of your own writing, why should you be paying more just because the reviewer added a few extra words or you have an extra stanza? Bluntly, Urbis puts quality over quantity - something no creative group should ever do. Still, the service has its merits if you want to find an audience that will actually read your work and give educated criticism. Urbis is a credit-based peer review service.

If you want to give Urbis a try, please post in the comments so I can send you an invite. The more people you invite, the more credits for you… without having to go through all that trouble of actually thinking.