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The difference between the internet and most previous forms of media is the prevalence of UGC – User generated content. User generated content includes a wide range of things including blogs, videos, podcasts, forums, social networking, reviews, photography and wikis. UGC has become a much more important part of media content with the rise of self-publishing sites like Twitter and with the rise of sites that publish user submitted content like Huffington Post. UGC can be the entirety of a website or it can be only a portion of it. For example, sites like Amazon or IMDb are composed mostly of “official” information, but also includes forums and reviews by customers. UGC can also be heavily moderated.
The big difference between user generated content and traditional content is that UGC is usually considered conversational while traditional content is uni-directional. This “Web 2.0″ requirement of posting content that people will respond to and commenting on other people’s content. The interesting thing is that the advent of this kind of behavior has lead to companies that previously relied on uni-directional messaging to becoming more interactive in their content.
An excellent example of how “old media” is incorporating UGC is CNN. In 2006, CNN launched something called iReport in which viewers could submit their own videos and news stories. Salon.com has a very similar feature called OpenSalon which acts as a sort of supplement to the big news stories written by the official reporters. UGC has become very important to the news industry because of the ability of people with cell phone cameras to take videos in the middle of events where news cameras aren’t present. The Arab Spring has depended very heavily on getting UGC out to the rest of the world through social media and then through larger news organizations.
The line between what is officially generated and what is user generated is somewhat blurry. Some users are paid for their contributions, making the difference between them and those officially creating content less obvious. The difference between publishers creates a binary distinction that isn’t as clear as the term implies. Still UGC is an important part of the process of making sure new media and social media is engaging and exciting for users.
Interested in learning more about UGC and social media? Consider attending Social Media Strategies Summit in Las Vegas February 7-9, 2012 where over 50 presenters will be facilitating workshops and sessions over three days. This event is a 6 track summit: 1) B2B 2) B2B 3) Nonprofit/Government 4) Regulated Industries 5) Small – Medium Size Business 6) Entertainment with 12 interactive workshops. Register today for early bird pricing.
