User Labor proposes an open data structure, User Labor Markup Language (ULML), to outline the metrics of user participation in social web services. Its aim is to construct criteria and context for determining the value of user labor, which is a monetized asset for the service provider but not for the users themselves. We believe that universal, transparent, and self-controlled user labor metrics will ultimately lead to more sustainable social web.

A ULML record has three main elements:

Actions: A user’s actions (photos, videos, tags, comments…)

Reactions: People’s reactions to a user’s actions (likes, comments, votes…)

Network: Efficiency of the interconnections within a user’s social network

More information at http://www.userlabor.org

Performances:

Facebook User Labor Enactments, Digital Labor Conference, The New School, New York, 2009

User Labor Presentation, Digital Labor Conference, The New School, New York, 2009

User Labor Lecture, Neuberger Museum of Art, New York, 2008

Initial implementation in Meta-Markets.com, 2008