Well I think most of the time we are aware that we generate value in our communications. The problem starts when this value is exploited.

This is exactly my point. And I think, this exploitation can happen both ways (facilitator/participant) as long as there is heightened awareness of value.

Not sure about the office party.

Well I think most of the time we are aware that we generate value in our communications. The problem starts when this value is exploited.

If participants participate with the intention of generating value (as opposed to reacting to content), would the participation be still natural?

A lot of ‘participation’ here.

If the value of each participation is tangible, meaning that if each comment, tag etc is intentionally trying to promote content, would it train users to be immune to it and eventually kill its purpose?

Immune to what? participation? It is not an illness. We paticipate / communicate by nature, that’s why majority of the people don’t care about their social interaction being a sort of work. If you write to my wall I am happy to write to your wall etc.

The content (photos, videos, bookmarks etc.) we upload to social services is just a part of the total work we do on these services. What else we do? We comment, vote, forward, mix, tag, rewrite, refine, fix, recommend, we create a public opinion and public interest. This type of work makes the spectacle.

This is an interesting remark. Right now, I would say most of comments, votes, tags etc. is based on reaction on content - meaning, the intention is not to glorify or mortify the content but to react to it on an individual scale.

If the value of each participation is tangible, meaning that if each comment, tag etc is intentionally trying to promote content, would it train users to be immune to it and eventually kill its purpose? This reminds me of Ebert&Roeper, the two guys who give thumbs-up to every single horrible flick.

These days anyone can start a social web service it seems, such a profitable market! All you do is capture/reflect a real social network and provide tools to manage the connections.

Here is another conference on graphing social patterns
http://graphingsocial.com/

I think this thread is becoming the “water cooler” of Meta-Markets!

The content (photos, videos, bookmarks etc.) we upload to social services is just a part of the total work we do on these services. What else we do? We comment, vote, forward, mix, tag, rewrite, refine, fix, recommend, we create a public opinion and public interest. This type of work makes the spectacle. This is the spectacle that is digitally measurable only by the service providers themselves.

I feel like YouTube Partner Program is just hiding this second type of work that we do on these social services.

So, how about quantifying how much value a user brings to a service, since the content is the user now? What does the user get for generating all these advertising revenues?

That is the 64 Million Dollar question! Or if we use the Google Adsense model based off the number of clickthroughs per thousand page impression this post has received: That is the .02 question! If compensation for “social work” starts to be utilized will it actually relate to the amount of value the users input contributes to the environment, or will it just be a token gesture.