User Labor

An open data standard to measure and value user participation in the social web—making user labor visible and exchangeable by the users themselves.

User Labor introduces the User Labor Markup Language (ULML), an open data standard designed to quantify user participation on social web platforms. It provides consistent, transparent metrics for evaluating user labor—activity that is monetized by platforms but typically unrewarded and unseen by users. By formalizing these metrics, ULML enables a more equitable and sustainable social web.

ULML tracks participation across three dimensions:

• Actions: Original user created content (posts, photos, tags, comments…)
• Reactions: Audience engagement with those contributions (likes, shares, votes…)
• Network: The structure and efficiency of a user’s social graph

ULML was actively implemented in the Meta-Markets platform (2007–2009), where it served as the foundation for valuing and trading user profiles. By assigning value to participation, the system turned invisible labor into visible, user-owned assets—making the economic dynamics of digital platforms transparent and contestable.