""The only person I can rely on not to screw me--hopefully--is myself."

--ThisNext.com founder (and former Weblogs Inc.biz dev guy) Gordon Gould, quoted in a Business Week article on user generated content and the impulse to contribute without monetary gain, a behavior that has served his site, digg, Yelp and countless other platforms/communities extremely well, generating tons of page views with no fees for content production.

Susan sez: What Gordon was actually referencing was the push toward self-sufficiency and the interest in publishing platforms participation in his site demonstrates--and the business imperative to keep the ranks stocked as any particular individual's interest rises--and falls.

(Bonus quote from author Steven Baker: "The trick in the volunteer economy is less to keep a superstar from quitting than to make sure that plenty of eager volunteers are ready to work to take her place."