Ninja by day, student by night

I’m usually oblivious to Internet-enabled activism and political actions in mainstream media, mostly because I’m not convinced that my voice will be heard.  Even though we have discussed how social networking and virtual communities can spread information like wildfire, beyond my own personal life, I haven’t had a close-to-home experience until this past month. I’ve managed to stay out of those situations because I was concerned that it might reflect on me in a permanent way with potential employers, or the people I care about.   Despite my initial caution, I decided to do something for once, and stand up for my beliefs in a way that made sense to me, even if it might not be a big deal to someone else.

My track record hasn’t been that great with Facebook events, it is really easy to get people upset over details that initially seem unimportant, and I can almost empathize with the guy who create a event for WSU Pullman students, basically a theme party called “Vatos Lokos”.

“Vatos Lokos Party
Type: Party – Mixer
Start Time: Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 9:00pm
End Time: Monday, March 29, 2010 at 9:00am
Location: Pullmonster

Description: Not everyone in Pullman is going to be lucky enough to hit up the beautiful beaches of Mexico over spring break. So whats the best way to combat both the post spring break blues AND the withdrawal symptoms those of us who were in Mexico will be feeling? You guessed it … a VATOS LOKOS themed party. Here is the deal, The goal of this party is to successfully spread ONE single theme across the ENTIRE Pullman campus. This means Frats throwing a vatos lokos themed party/mixer this night, anyone throwing a house party use the theme on this night, hell we even want the youngsters drinking in the dorms to dress up like Mexican thugs. Also anyone willing to have random people at their house again (Thanks again to the hosts of the sweater party!) shoot me an
email with your address and i will group email the locations so everyone knows where to go. So everyone dress up like your favorite type of Mexican gangster Wife beaters, house shoes, zoot suits, mexican cowboy or whatever the hell you think is appropriate. If you dont know what a mexican gangster looks like check out the pics below! Lets make this a big one! Any and all help in planning/ loko runs/ and hosting will be GREATLY appreciated! (Yeah im talkin to you guys at the underground!)

Confirmed Guests
This event has 113 confirmed guests” (http://stfuconservatives.tumblr.com/post/435764301)

After that was posted, I saw a facebook status message from one of my friends who was asking us to spread the information, reminding me a lot of the first chapter of Shirky, where a guy started a social networking feud with a girl who didn’t return his friend’s lost phone.  The guy basically let all his friends know about the problem, tracked down the girl, held the police accountable and made such an uproar that the girl ended up returning the phone and having the police get into her business.  In this case, many people shared the message with others on Facebook while others sent a copy of the event and its link to the WSU president.

During that time I decided to repost my friend’s message to my Google Buzz and to my facebook status, so more people could see it, even though I didn’t get any reactions or comments from anyone.  Since nobody seemed to notice, I decided to go a bit further and sign up for some of the news-sharing social networking sites like digg and hotfeeder.  I figured there wasn’t much of a chance that anyone would see it, but I wanted there to be a permanent record that this did happen.  A student created a group against the Vatos Lokos parties on facebook, and people who had an issue (and some who had an issue with the people who had an issue) joined and a discussion was started.  The event creator apologized and the group ended up changing its name to WSU Students Against Racist Theme Parties, and changing its description to something less inflammatory. By Monday, March 8th, WSU posted an announcement about how WSU planned to deal with the event (since it was related to fraternities and sororities), and had the event deleted.

It was quite anticlimatic, and the only news agency that mentioned the event was the Moscow-Pullman newspaper (subscription needed), even the Daily Evergreen (the college newspaper) didn’t bother to post anything about the it.

“Facebook note: Washington State University Fraternities Plan a Week of Anti-Mexican Persecutory Actions.” stfuconservatives.tumblr.com.  Tumblr,  10 March 2010. Web. 31 March 2010. <http://stfuconservatives.tumblr.com/post/435764301>

“Theme party being promoted to WSU students on Facebook draws racial concerns.” right-mind.us. Moscow Education (Idaho), 8 March 2010.  Web.  31 March 2010. <http://right-mind.us/blogs/moscoweducation/archive/2010/03/08/72623.aspx>

“Theme party being promoted to WSU students on Facebook draws racial concerns.” hotfeeder.com/politics. Web. Hot Feeder, 8 March 2010. <http://www.hotfeeder.com/politics/theme_party_being_promoted_to_wsu_students_on_facebook_draws_racial_concerns_2404327>

“Vatos Lokos Theme Party Being Promoted to WSU Students.” digg.com/political_opinion/.  Digg, 8 March 2010. Web. 31 March 2010. <http://digg.com/political_opinion/Vatos_Lokos_Theme_party_being_promoted_to_WSU_students/who>

“WSU Addresses Concern About Vatos Lokos Parties.” thedivision.wsu.edu. WSU, 9 March 2010. Web. 31 March 2010. <http://thedivision.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=1206>

Hey ladies and gents,

I have a favor, please fill out this cosmetic survey for my marketing group, we need to get a ton of people to fill it out, so sorry if you saw this on my facebook page.

It is anonymous, and will help me and my group out for our marketing paper. Let me know if you have any troubles or if something didn’t make sense.

I created a mashup (NSFW or for life, if you are scared of otaku) for my DTC 477 class, basically we learned how to use APIs to create a topical website.  I decided to do mine with anime elements, such as flickr images, a Google map with points for anime conventions, anime stores, etc.  The last element is from twitter, which lists all the anime related tweets.

It was pretty fun, and I ended up spending too much time on it because I was really interested in the Google Maps API.  I think I can use what I learned to create some cool tricks using the chart API for my database project at my job.  I’m really excited about it, and the cool part was seeing how everyone expressed themselves through their sites.

If you did one, please post your url, I’d love to get inspiration from my fellow graphic designers.

I used  Julie’s tutorial (Steps 1, 2, 3).

After discussing my ideas for my research paper with Julie, I decided to change my focus away from gaming and communities to another topic with more potential for a unique perspective.  I spent some time with Gus, a comparative ethnic studies major and talked about the topics that our class discussed over the semester, and we found some potential in the grouping of race/gender (as underrepresented groups) and community.

Traditional media has issues because it focuses on white society, it is owned/operated by a white majority, and incorporates biases from white society. Since underrepresented groups do not have control over how they are portrayed in traditional media, it is hard to change the existing bias that comes with visual identification.  In my paper, I plan to argue that cyberspace gives underrepresented groups more choices about representation that are not available through traditional media.

Some examples:

In 1994, there was the controversy about the OJ Simpson magazine covers, where one magazine used his photograph for the cover while Time magazine darkened his skin.  Critics felt Time was exploiting society’s bias with minorities by making OJ seem more menacing with darkened skin and a thicker beard.

Current commercials have that issue as well, where L’Oreal lightened Beyonce’s skin color for their Feria hair commercials, as well as other minority women like Freida Pinto.  Consider the use of minorities in those “troubles paying back your loan” commercials when statistics show that whites have more credit debt repayment problems than minorities.

Ideally the Internet gives underrepresented groups an opportunity to build communities, share information and create spaces that represent them through video, pictures and text because there are (supposedly) no rules or limits, but we’ve discussed in class about many groups just don’t have access, and if there isn’t access for them, how can they use that technology represent themselves?

However, there are still issues with representation because as traditional media moves itself from its traditional roots to online representations of itself, it also brings its methods with it as well.   My question is whether writers from online media (websites, social networking, and virtual communities) can avoid the platform of biases that come with working with traditional media.  Specifically, if we are online, we are not obligated to share information about ourselves; we have a rhetorical choice, which is something we do not have a choice about if we go through traditional media.

If you consider the idea that an author typically has their photo in a book, a newspaper article may have a photo or information about the journalist in the byline, and a group panel on CNN has visual cues from just watching it.  Can we avoid our own personal biases by not knowing information about the author? It’s similar to using an avatar with our online communities; we get to make the choice about how we want to be viewed online.  In our fishbowl discussion about avatars, people had different reasons for their avatars in various online communities; some even had different ones based on virtual space.

We learned in class about how we are bad at judging race, and that the Internet is assumed to be white males, but how does that affect how we interpret information on the Internet?  I think that there is a potential power in being able to slip past the bias, and maybe get on a more level playing field, but there are some questions about whether it is wise to go that route.

One issue is that as both a woman and a minority, I want to participate as myself, and if I can provide a powerful argument on the Internet, shouldn’t I be an example of what a minority woman can do?  If I don’t share that information, the question is how the future generations will find their role models or inspiration if there are no online representations.  It also allows society to assume that the information in cyberspace isn’t coming from underrepresented groups, so there will be no move to change

Works Cited/Annotations

Eglash, Ron. “Race, Sex and Nerds: from Black Geeks to Asian-American Hipsters.” Social Text 20.225  (2002): pp. 49-64.  Web.  25 March 2010. <http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/ethnic.dir/nerds.dir/nerd.htm>

Eglash discusses how technological representation is based on financial resources, racial bonds and cultural identities.  He links Turkle’s study of nerd identity with the bonding of cultural identities that lead to success in the technological collaborations.  Since the nerd identity is primarily linked to white males, the ability for minorities and women to bond and collaborate with other technologically savvy people is much lower than their male counterparts.

Joyce, Cynthia. “race matters in cyberspace, too.” Salon.com. Salon | 21^st, 5 June, 1997. Web. 25 March 2010. <http://www.salon.com/june97/21st/race970605.html>

An article describing the issues of working within the white technology sector while promoting minorities online.  One of the interesting quotes in this piece is about how the CEO discusses that he isn’t concerned that blacks are a small minority in the online representation of people in 1997, and won’t be concerned unless the numbers are the same in 2007. The rest of the article discusses the reasons why minorities are not represented online, in software companies and in the media.

Gaiter, Leonce. “is the Web too cool for blacks?”. Salon.com. Salon | 21^st , 5 June 1997. Web. 25 March 2010. <http://www.salon.com/june97/21st/cool970605.html>

Gaiter’s article discusses the issue of blacks in cyberspace; whether the issue of identity should be ignored in order to benefit from the anonymity of the web.  He also argues that a break from the traditional methods of protest could help black causes and by creating spaces that are not occupied by white bias.

Jones-Shoeman, Cynthia. “How One’s Online Image is Self-Representation”.  Suite101.com.  29 June 2009. Web. 25 March 2010. <http://internet.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_ones_online_image_is_selfrepresentation>

The website article discusses some of the basics of online identity, and how different types of text used in online tools build an identity in cyberspace.  The discussion under the heading, “Text Equals Identity in Cyberspace” covers some of the ways that people represent themselves online and compares it to how we control our appearance in real life, as well as the restrictions imposed on our face-to-face communication by our unalterable physical characteristics.

Honda, Michael. “Lack of Minority Representation in Media”.  Asianweek.com. 25 August, 2009. Web. 26 March 2010. <http://www.asianweek.com/2009/08/25/lack-of-minority-representation-in-media/>

The article discusses how traditional media is still entrenched with a lack of minority representation, and how new media is an opportunity for under-represented groups to share perspectives and perpetuate diversity through online video, texts and pictures.

Cohen, Jeff. “Racism and Mainstream Media.” Fair.org. 1 October 1999. Web. 26 March 2010. <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2527>

Cohen argues that traditional media is still not doing enough to include minorities in their staff, and in power positions.  He also argues that the lack of minorities in key positions has an influence on the type of content that is produced, as well as the choices made to represent minorities in the media and how traditional media continues to focus on negative stereotypes about minorities.

Leung, Linda. Virtual Ethnicity: Race, Resistance and the World Wide Web. Burlington, VA:  Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2005. Web. 26 March 2010. <http://books.google.com/books?id=hQgd1xc5gN4C&lpg=PA18&ots=xXePVAE7Nq&dq=traditional%20media%20representations%20of%20race&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q=traditional%20media%20representations%20of%20race&f=false>

The book (and its excerpts online) discusses how minorities create, and represent themselves on the web.  In one excerpt, Leung notes the differences between the online representations made by minorities and the ones made by white about minorities, especially the diverse representations from minorities.

The creation of tools to help people connect on the internet have also increased the ability of people to connect offline. Shirky discusses how the tools do not change the human need to congregate and meet with each other, which is what occurred when people use virtual communities. Even though people were connecting with people from different areas using a virtual community, they started to use online tools to contact people that had the same interests.  He discusses how Meetup.com was meant to bring virtual communities together in real life, but the trends showed that it wasn’t just about what was popular with society, it was focused more on whether the groups had traditional support or not.  The Meetup founders found that non-traditional groups like witches were more popular on Meetup because it was hard for members to find people with unique interests.  It makes sense that people might find it harder to find people with similar interests if the topic is something sensitive or personal, such as alternative lifestyles.

I also thought that Meetup would be more popular with large groups on topics on religion, popular culture and politics.  I was surprised that Meetup was very popular with virtual communities, because as a gamer, I typically don’t meet any of the people I play online games with.  I have however, met with some of my fellow gamers at a game-specific convention one time, but that was because I was heavily involved in the game, both as a player and as a person who volunteered their time to work on the game.

One thing I’ve learned over the semester is that even if people are involved in virtual communities, they seek face to face contact with their community but organizing a meeting can be difficult when people live so far away.  Meetup helped people by allowing their users to be grouped by region, interest and event, so if you are living in a big city, the chances that someone with a similar interest in the same region might be high, while someone who lives out the boonies can plan on a trip to an appointed place to meet with other people with the same interest.

Facebook, a popular social networking site utilizes a similar method in their Event modules.  Although it’s on a smaller scale, it allows people to invite people to events that are going on in their lives.  The Event module allows the user to hide/show event information based on whether you want people to see your event or if you want it to be a surprise or a secret.  Facebook also has Fan and Groups pages that allow people to join groups of people with similar interests, and it lets people (with the correct permissions) post information about events, share information and share commentary on shared interests on a global scale (or smaller), as well as posting the Fan/Group information to a person’s page so anyone who has permission can see that information and learn more about the person (as well as allow viewers to see the group if they are interested in it).

She’s a good egg, that one. I was tossing around ideas in my head, doing research to fix my proposal and I wasn’t sure how to improve my idea, to make it clear instead of muddy. She definitely helped me put down what was in my head in a better form, although whether it is specific enough, we will see.

New and Improved Idea:

I decided to work with virtual communities and narrowing that down to gaming, and my second topic is online personas.

My argument is that online spaces (such as gaming) are not paralleling real life anymore, they are a part of real life and your actions have real consequences/benefits to your real life.

I have seen the “so what” about this argument in class, when we discussed the virtual rape article and how people deal with their online activities. Some people feel that if they treat online spaces as a separate box from their real life interactions, there is no real effect on their real life. Others choose to limit their online interactions by not using social networking tools, not playing games or participating in virtual communities, in essence, a lurker.

I believe that online interactions are becoming (if they aren’t already) a part of our lives to the point that there is no separation. In positive cases, people meet up with their online friends in real life areas based on interests that may not be traditionally supported. (read about it in Shirky’s book) There is also the ability to communicate through social networking tools and sharing information/friendship like pictures through online galleries, playing games as a group, etc.

The negative aspects are cases documented where online activities have negatively affected people’s lives in real life. The Korean couple who let their baby die of malnutrition while gaming, the mommy myspace incident with the fake persona, my own personal experiences with Facebook and my wedding (clash of the traditional values vs social networking).

Why is it important to me? Because I’m completely engaged in my virtual spaces, and even though people don’t treat me as oddly as before for spending so much time online (gaming in particular), there are a lot of people who don’t understand that it is valid for people to treat both spaces as the same, not different.

I would really like people to understand where I’m coming from, and maybe I can understand how and why they treat things separately.

Beware Vegas, the GIOs are on their way to wreck havoc and mayhem in Las Vegas for the rest of week.  All I ask is that Gus come back in one piece and alive, preferably with everything he came with and nothing extra.   I admit I’ve been turning green all week because he gets to go do something fun with his friends without anyone to keep an eye on him, plus it’s probably warm and sunny over there too!  So as you can guess, I’m stuck at home and it’s Spring Break, the first spring break I haven’t gone anywhere in a while.  At least I’m making some extra money, right?  Although Gus has earned his vacation, I kinda want one too, I’m really tired and not feeling very inspired.

Still, I have some goals for this week.  To finish the mobile website (almost done), test it and have it look good on most browsers, and have all the calculators/downloadables work. I decided to work on a wedding template, just to see what I can do since I don’t have anyone to ask for dinner or want attention (other than the cats).  I definitely need more work so I want to get some portfolio pieces going so I can say I have done something with myself this week, other than play FF13 (which is rather dull so far) and do a little bit of reading for next week’s work. Anyone in DTC 477 give me the head’s up on what is due for next week?  I e-mailed Farman but he never got back to me.

Intrigue still reigns with my wedding, it seems I’m not allowed to share the wedding date like I want to, and it’s a little embarrassing that things are so last-minute.  It kind of makes me feel sick to my stomach sometimes, even though there is no reason for me to worry.  If things don’t go well, it wasn’t because I didn’t try to plan things, but it’s really hard for me to enjoy the experience if I have to worry about not having the basic things planned out.  I’m going to let it go, it’s only going to make me unhappy.

I got a little talk about writing on my blog, that writing about my angry feelings isn’t the best thing to do, and that it makes people upset.  I think my writing style is so completely…tame compared to what I used to write about.  I guess it’s okay to write about topics and send warm fuzzies, but heaven help me if I get mad and write about it.  I’ve mentioned this many times in my old blog and I’ll say it here:  Each post is a snapshot of my feelings and mental thoughts at the exact time of posting.  As soon as I hit the publish button, it is no longer a “current” snapshot, it’s in the past.  I usually go through a process when I write and afterwards I’m wiped clean of any emotion and usually any tension as well.  This is my therapy, how I keep myself from feeling down, from getting too stressed out.  Once my classes are done, I’ll probably change my blog back to a private one because it always gets me in trouble.  How do people keep it honest without everyone getting mad?  I could use some tips, and don’t give me the “oh don’t post about private stuff” because that isn’t going to work.

Anyway, on to something less controversial.  I sound like a money-hungry beeyotch most times, but I am so tired of not having money.  I want to do well in my classes, but I also want to keep my business going.  I’d really like to get my business license so I can be all official this year.  So that means goals.  I sometimes try to think about the things I want in order to motivate me to work harder.  I’d like a pretty wedding outfit, one that suits and fits me.   I’d also like some new shoes, and some hot rollers for my hair.  I think I’d also like some nice earphones (the small ones that fit in my ears) and inspiration to become more creative (maybe paint more).

Today my goal is to create a template that I can use for a simple wedding informational website.  Password-protected of course.   2nd goal is to test the mobile site.  If you have an iPhone, please check out the mobile website, let me know if it looks like crap.  Not everything works so be kind.  At least it works and looks good in Opera, next stop, Blackberry.

I have been fixated on two general topics this semester, virtual communities and gender.  My biggest interest for virtual communities came from reading Julian Dibbell’s text, “A Rape In Cyberspace” because it discusses how a virtual community had real life feelings and reactions about the virtual rape that occurred in LambdaMOO.  I was also interested in hearing people’s reactions to the article, because there seemed to be a polarizing effect, ranging from “who cares about what happens online” to empathy with the victims to “it’s virtual, it doesn’t count”.

I believe it does count, but I’m not sure if that’s a unique argument in of itself.  I think that if people are putting that much time into a game, they have to have some sort of emotional link to it, or perhaps to the groups they play with. Perhaps a better question is whether a generation of computer users that have grown up with virtual communities agree that what happens in virtual space doesn’t stay there, it influences our life, and that is normal.  I keep reading about people who have let gaming take over their lives or guys that ignore their girlfriends to play games, isn’t that giving more authenticity to the game rather than to real life?

I plan to argue that the  interactions within gaming are as authentic as the interactions going on in real life for people who grew up with computers, rather than integrating computers into their lives,by using social networking cases, and the virtual rape text for a starting point.  If the topic is too broad, I could focus on the authenticity of gender within the gaming community.  There’s a lot of information out there, so I’m still poking around trying to find something that is unique.

Suggestions are welcome.

I finally sorted out my troubles that I’ve been having with that one relative I’ve been writing about, thank goodness.  It was the only good part about the day, well Gus gave me a mental pat on the head for working it out with her, so that made me happy too.  I’ve been working on my midterm since the weekend started, and I admit I’ve had a lot going on so I felt really distracted with all the drama and other schoolwork so it was hard to concentrate, but I did prevail!  I finished my essays on Monday, but I needed to go through them, edit and add all the MLA bits that I have trouble remembering to do.  I ended up finishing at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, which was very bad for my head because I accidentally sent my work to someone else, which was really embarrassing.   Luckily I figured it out before the due date at 9 a.m. (on Tuesday!!!) and re-sent it at 8 a.m.  Some days I just wonder, right?

So I managed to wade through the day with only a few hours of sleep, and I did manage to sound coherent even if I didn’t look so good (today someone said I looked tired, even though I wore my eyeliner, FML).  On my way home, my car started to fail, the lights started flashing, dimmed and then turned off completely.  Right near the main stop near my home, I felt the power steering go and the next thing I know, I’m rolling down the hill towards my house.  Thank goodness for that!  I switched gears to neutral, rolled down the slight hill and right into my street parking space with a sigh of relief.  Unfortunately nobody was home because Gus was leaving that evening for work-related travel, so I was out of luck on getting him to fix my car.  After I called him to update him on my problem, he told me I could use his fancy car to go to school.  Which was great, until I remembered that his tabs were expired.  I managed to get to school today, but I don’t think I’m going to risk it in the next few days, there’s too many cops on the road, at least on the freeway towards Tri-Cities.  I’m sure they are out because Spring Break is coming up.  Gus will be back on Sunday so he’ll bring back the part (alternator) for my car and hopefully we can work together and get it fixed (and get his tabs updated) so we’ll have a vehicle.  He’s leaving for his bachelor party in Vegas next week during Spring Break so I’m planning to focus on work, and making some money!

I hope Dr. Farman will figure out a way to get the Iphone application installed on the Mac lab computers, I really have a bunch of cool ideas that I want to try out, but I need a way to do it and I can’t really afford a Mac just for development purposes only.  This might be a good way to get some group collaboration with some of the graphic designers in my class, I have been trying to think of an interesting way for us to work together on a project we could use for our portfolios, but haven’t come up with anything useful yet.

Personal communication tools has changed the way people share information and how we manage the content that comes into our proximity.  Shirky considers the ramifications of changing the way media publishes information, based on how society transformed personal communication into public communication.  The overall theme of his book is about how extreme changes come about because society changes the way it does things, modifying behavior, creating new behaviors and removing outdated ones.  User-generated content has been the result of society changing from getting their information from trusted sources such as magazines, newspapers and books to getting information from new outlets, such as online communities, blogs, and social networking tools.

I have been following the trends of personal communication tools, adopting and trying out different versions of blogs, social networking sites and online forums to see how these tools can help me communicate better with the people I know.  I checked the wayback machine (stores websites and its revisions) and the earliest version of my blog (1.3) was from 2001, which means that I was around for the blog early days, even if I wasn’t an early adopter.  The whole purpose of my blog was to share my life and have an outlet to share my thoughts with my friends and family, and I ended up doing it until fall 2007, which was over 6 years of entries.  I’m not the only one who does it though, people share information in different ways through popular tools like Blogger, Livejournal, Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook. There is a lot of information

Shirky defines user-generated content as information that is shared with online tools and is purely an unprofessional medium (83-84).  I do agree that user-generated content should be classified with using online tools that could share with the world, but there is a grey area between what is professional and what is unprofessional.  He clarifies the statement by saying that if it doesn’t reach an audience or the content was created by someone who works to get an audience, it doesn’t count.  I disagree with the generality of his concept and would go on to be more specific, that if the intent of the content is to reach an online audience, then it should count as user-generated content.  This would differentiate the difference between his example of writing a proposal for others to read in a limited context like work, and writing a proposal and posting it online for the world to see.  There are still issues though, because even if someone publishes a proposal online, it doesn’t mean it will reach an audience.  There are abandoned blogs everywhere, where the writer got bored or didn’t get any feedback and stopped blogging, but it’s still there.  Someone could read it.  I have a blog on blogspot that is sort of there, but its interface  isn’t accessible to me so I can’t update it or fix the issues with it because of some snafu when Blogger was bought out by google.

The second issue is that of the amateur, the definition of the user who creates user-generated content.  Shirky compares Stephen King’s in-progress novel is not user-generated content, but I would assume that if Stephen King wanted to tweet or blog about something, it could count as user-generated content, even though he is a professional writer (83-84).  Perhaps it is more about content, if a writer wanted to shill his book on social networking tools, I could understand why it might not count, but what about a blogger who receives ad revenue or receives free samples?  Technically the review blogs are getting something for their work, even though it might not be enough to cover the time and effort they put into their blog.  Still, it adds information to the collective content and its purpose is to be shared to an audience.

As the purpose of user-generated content changes and expands to include more grey areas (posting pictures and getting paid for your photos), I believe the definition of user-generated content being a purely amateur and unpaid will need to be updated.  User-generated content is a ubiquitous part of the Internet with the addition of the cell phone browser and applications, and is  a commodity in its own right.