Help HubPages Make it to SXSW!

If you’re a fan of music, film, technology, and the tech scene, you probably know about SXSW, an Austin-based set of conferences and festivals that take place every March. Last year, Paul Edmondson spoke at SXSW about bringing back the love when Google hates you (remember the Panda days? I try not to), and this year we’d like to speak again, though we can’t make it without your help and support.

This year, we’ve proposed two different talks- one led by Paul and the other by Yours, Truly (we had multiple cool ideas- why not give both a shot?).

Paul’s proposal: Why You Should Pay People to Learn

My proposal: Blogging is Dead: Long Live the Individual

Do those sound intriguing? We hope so! I’ve provided the detailed summaries below, but first, I’d like to show you how you can help us:

To support a HubPages presence at SXSW, you can help us out by:

1. Going to our proposals (Why You Should Pay People to Learn and Blogging is Dead: Long Live the Individual) on SXSW’s Panel Picker interface
2. Creating an account if you don’t have one already (it takes about 30 seconds, and I will adore you eternally)
3. Voting
4. Leaving a comment (comments = yay!!)
5. Sharing our proposals with your friends and encouraging them to vote for us, too!

Here is the official summary of each proposed talk, should you be curious to learn more:

Why You Should Pay People to Learn

Online communities have become big business- so big that many social media and publishing platforms are making huge investments in teaching their users to become more active community participants. In some cases, companies are even directly paying community members to participate in educational programs.

This approach diverges from the traditional means by which education is delivered (an exchange in which learners pay and educators earn). Why switch things up? Websites should pay their community members to learn for the same reasons companies should invest in employee development.

HubPages CEO Paul Edmondson will share how online communities aren’t so different from the companies we work for every day, and will also detail the multifaceted benefits of shifting our educational payment paradigm, which include more vibrant, evangelistic communities, effective and empowered users, and a virtuous cycle that benefits all parties involved.

Blogging is Dead: Long Live the Individual

The world of blogging as we once knew it is dead and gone. Independent websites run by single, mostly amateur individuals have given way to large internet media houses featuring re-blogged and syndicated content.

Where have the individual personalities gone? What happened to unfiltered content presented by non-professionals? This characteristic form of online information has largely transformed into short posts (tweets, comments, questions, answers, forum posts, wiki updates, etc) shared on large, external websites and social media platforms, which are now the most powerful (and in many cases, only viable) platforms for user-generated content.

Does this mean that high quality user-generated content tied to an influential online persona is a thing of the past? Hardly! Join user-generated content expert Simone Smith as she discusses how the individual is coming back to the world of UCG- and sharing work that is richer and more comprehensive than ever before.

 

We hope you’ll help us out!