HitRECord’s online community collaborates to create profitable media
Online collaboration is bridging the gap between celebrity and regular folks with the website hitRECord. The pet project of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (you might know him as the awkward teenager in the 90s series Third Rock from the Sun or more recently from the film Inception) is an open-collaborative production company where users can submit and borrow music, video, poetry, writing and other art. The project started in 2005 but was officially launched at Sundance in 2010.
What makes the site so unique is that profits are split equally between the company and the contributing artists. Members of the hitRECord community upload their work to the site, where others can download, sample, edit and remix it, creating what the site calls a RECord. Copyrighted material isn’t allowed on the site so every piece of content is fair game to use in productions.
“Remix isn’t theft. It’s just how we work together.” — Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Since the launch in 2010, more than 50,000 artists have contributed more than 200,000 works and the company paid out nearly $50,000 to artists.
Google’s Updated Privacy Policy
As NPR reports, Google has made major changes to its privacy policy. Where previously Google had used individual privacy policies for each site (YouTube, Gmail, etc.), the company is now moving to a single unified policy that covers all sites in their network (with the exceptions of Wallet, Books, and Chrome). In the official FAQ, Google describes some user-facing changes that may result from this policy:
“Over time you can expect to see better search results, ads and other content when you’re using Google services. A more consistent user experience across Google might mean that we give you more accurate spelling suggestions because you’ve typed them before. Or maybe we can tell you that you’ll be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and the local traffic conditions. Google users still have to do too much heavy lifting, and we want to do a better job of helping them.”
Google’s new privacy policy and terms of service take effect March 1st.
Can online gaming change political campaigns?
It’s the big question in today’s political campaigning arena: the internet has revolutionized the way we consume media… so how do rewrite the playbook on engaging and moving voters?
Web savvy campaign strategists are bringing popular social media marketing tools to political campaigns to mobilize volunteers, encourage activism and convert “likes” into votes.
“What’s happened over the last few years is that politicians, political parties, non-profits, and lobbyists have realised that games can be used to influence voter behavior,”
“It’s always about influencing decision-making, and about engaging people to take a certain action: campaign, recruit your friends, vote for our candidate.”
- Gabriel Zichermann, the CEO of Gamification Co.
