With the rise of sites like Twitter that boast real-time updates and breaking news (albeit some sources may not be credible), will consumers be willing to pay for content? A Pew survey says 82% say no.

I feel like I’ve been having this conversation a lot recently – are people willing to pay for content?  Sadly, as the Pew survey points out, the answer (for now) is a resounding “no.” So why would The New York Times decide to start charging for access to its online content in January 2011? Aside from the obvious (they have to find a way to make money), I’m afraid that they (like a lot of other publishers) are reading too much into the early numbers for digital readership via e-readers and more specifically, the iPad. The success (modest or otherwise) of a limited number of newspapers and magazines on the Kindle and nook are the first signs that the answer could someday be “yes.” Add to this the excitement around the magazine apps being developed for the iPad and other anticipated tablet devices, and the fact that some publishers are charging (or are planning to charge) as much as $3.00 or $4.00 per digital issue and you’ve got just a bit more cause to be optimistic. Then factor in the notion that a converged device like the iPad will start to blur the distinction between “applications” and “Internet” to the point where you (the reader) might not remember if you’re on a site or in an app, and you’ve got publishers basically salivating. Whoa – I just woke up from an awesome dream!

I believe it’s too soon to move to a paid subscription model if you are looking for instant success. Even January (seven months out) is too early. The first problem is audience size – there still aren’t enough e-readers and iPads out there (and I know they number in the millions already) to turn the tide yet. Most magazine issues that have been distributed in “app” format have only achieved distribution in the tens of thousands. My sense of the revenue that they generate would hardly amount to a single four-color page ad. Point being, right now, I’d argue that the proof of scale is glaringly absent. In other words, that the revenue generated by subscribers will outpace the revenue lost as a result of lower traffic hasn’t been established. The second problem is the audience itself – us. We are cheap. I think about all of the squawking about the price of e-books being “unfair” because of the substantially reduced overhead they represent to publishers, and I’m reminded that we basically cannot get our heads around the value of content. It seems we don’t think that authors should be compensated fairly or handsomely for keeping us informed, entertained and enlightened.

So, you know what? I’m with you NYT.com! Sure, you spilled the beans in a clumsy way and I actually think that you may fail initially, but you have seven months to make your case. And it’s an important case to make: Good content has value. Good content shouldn’t be free. And those who create it deserve to be compensated and rewarded.

We believe there’s wisdom in crowds, but turning crowd-sourcing into a viable business model is a challenge as yet unanswered. Twitter, Gowalla and Foursquare are getting there, but a sparsely funded non-profit project, Ushahidi, is the one breaking new ground in harnessing the power of the masses.

Ushahidi, which means “witness” in Swahili, was started by a group of tech-savvy activists in Africa to monitor violence in Kenya. They created an online platform that allows anyone with an internet connection or mobile phone to post location-based events or occurrences to a project URL. Their system aggregates the data and displays it via map-based visualization. Users can then access the site to view up-to-date reports and identify areas of activity and need.

The initial Ushahidi project was so successful that the system was subsequently used to track shortages in medical supplies in Africa, the H1N1 outbreak in the U.S. and numerous global events.

The ultimate test for Ushahidi came during the Haitian earthquake disaster. Their system collected over 3,500 events, primarily submissions by volunteers using mobile phones. The immediate response was so robust that the United Nations and other relief agencies used the site to monitor and address their relief efforts. In fact, at one point FEMA told the group, “Don’t stop mapping; you’re saving lives.” Most recently, Ushahidi’s crowd-sourcing technology has been used to log the effects of the Gulf Coast oil spill, in hopes of giving “a more global perspective” of the damage.

Not bad for a small group of mostly volunteer developers who had organized coding parties, called “hackathons,” just months before to enable the site to handle larger events like the Haiti disaster and the Gulf Coast oil spill.

With the advent of more mobile phones and a connected globe, sites like Ushahidi will become even more indispensable to organized relief efforts and NGO projects. Much of the crowd-sourcing technology promises to filter into business and consumer sectors, but the real story may be the impact that a small community of developers can have in helping to reshape the world in very positive ways.

For more on crisis reporting via texting, check out this TED video from Erik Hersman, one of othe Usahidi developers:

One mandate of good information architecture is finding concrete, measurable answers. So, my objectivity radar goes off when I see people trying to slip questions about aesthetics or subjective preferences into a round of Web site usability testing.  It’s against best practice, but it’s not as uncommon as you might think.

Companies want (and sometimes need) user feedback to validate visual design decisions. As a result, they often resort to a seemingly straightforward approach – simply asking usability participants which design they prefer and why.

But if you’ve ever tried it, you know that the answer isn’t always as easy as asking the question. In fact, asking the question often results in contradictory findings, confusing recommendations…and, ultimately, lots and lots of noise. Many users don’t know why a design makes them feel a certain way, and those that do often struggle to articulate it. The few who can provide reasons often introduce feedback too subjective to wager a business decision on.

A recent article at UXmatters.com addresses the practice of asking usability participants which visual design option they prefer. The author shares my belief that such feedback creates more noise than it does clarity — but he proposes an interesting alternative and offers a case study on how the method played out at his company.

The approach they followed was based on a white paper by Joey Benedek and Trish Miner of Microsoft. Summarized, the process would be something like this:

• In the creative brief, identify the top three to five descriptors that the creative design would ideally invoke.
• After information design is complete, prepare multiple creative concepts that include Web page comps with the same layout and content but differing aesthetics.
• Arrange one group of test participants for each visual concept you intend to test.
• Develop a set of adjectives that participants might use to describe the site. Be sure that these adjectives are words your participants will understand, are salient to your research, and include a mix of descriptions that people might consider positive (around 60%) and negative (around 40%). Microsoft used nearly 120 descriptors in their testing.
• Ask each participant to view a comp, then select the three to five of these adjectives they think best described it.
• Ask them why they selected each of the words they did.
• Track the responses.

I’ve often been faced with this research dilemma, but I have never found the solution– so I’m eager to try this method. Have you ever tried a test technique similar to this one? Tell us about your experience in the comments.