links for 2011-06-30

I partly see this as yet another aspect of the industry which is pushing the concept of fair payment as far as it will go while wannabe writers are happy to sit back and take it. If increasing amounts of people are happy to write for nothing, what happens to those who aren’t, and, even more worryingly, those who haven’t been throughout their careers? Furthermore, if we become a generation happy to remain unpaid (which we are, if you hadn’t noticed), then what happens when we start to demand payment? And to the next crop of new journalists?

Each week, Quirky’s community votes on the hundreds of submitted ideas to narrow them down to 10, two of which are then selected by an internal team of designers, engineers, researchers, and marketers. Anyone can consult on details throughout the development process, such as color, fabrication, and logo design; contributing to ideas makes users “Influencers” in Quirky parlance, who eventually earn a percentage of the finished products’ eventual revenue.