The Convergence Conversation

Groups & Committees

User generated content – as old as time or the next big thing?

There is much speculation in the media about the impact of user generated content on the marketplace – will people power undermine established commercial models?  Should companies re-evaluate their offering to exploit the enthusiasm demonstrated by users in generating their own content?  Intellect’s May Convergence Conversation examined these debates in more detail with a group of industry players drawn from across the technology, media and content value chain, coming up with more questions than answers about user generated content.

User generated content is nothing new, people naturally want to communicate.  From slide shows of holidays to You’ve Been Framed style family videoclips, people have always exploited the technology available to them to create their own content. As the internet era dawned, this trend continued from bulletin boards through to today’s video blogs. What today’s converged technologies and services offer however, which is new, is the opportunity for interaction around user generated content. This interactivity twinned with the freedom of the always-on broadband environment has facilitated an explosion in user generated content models, from eBay to MySpace and Flickr. 

Have we missed the boat?

This seems like a good place to start – the fact that the broadsheets and major networks are beginning to engage with user generated content, could suggest that it has already peaked and entered the commercial space.  Is it too late for businesses to join the user generated content bandwagon?

This question is contentious in itself: firstly, should this be a debate about commercial exploitation of a new phenomenon? By definition, user generated content exists alongside commercial content. Commercial user generated content is an oxymoron. Are we trying to wrap old-media models around a new media activity? 

Moving that debate to one side for a while, have we missed the boat? Are user generated content models so entrenched in the market that there is no room for more innovation? In a word, no. The only certainty in today’s market is change. Today’s consumers, particularly the younger generations have little brand loyalty, they pick up concepts through viral recommendation from friends and contacts, if it is good, they will come.  Also, we must not forget about TV. User generated content is still fundamentally PC based, suggesting that there is still a huge market out there to be untapped.

Young people seem to be immersed in user generated content using social networking sites to share content, whether it is video, music or blogs that they have created themselves. For this demographic, TV is becoming less relevant because it is not something they can interact with. If there is a piece of TV content they want, they will download it. User generated content models bring with them a total behaviour change, with the potential to undermine the one-to-many TV model. But, how much can this change be taken for granted when half the UK’s homes do not have a PC? Is the TV model really at risk or is user generated content is simply not yet being exploited in the living room? Just because this section of the population do not have a PC, does not mean they are not interested in new media services – look no further than the numbers of people who vote in reality TV shows. How much scope is there for the monetisation of user generated content for a mass audience model?

What about advertising?

Whilst user generated content offers commercial players some efficiencies – fewer expensive sets and editing suites, or journalist wage packets, there is still a need to get commercial marketing messages out to the masses. Can user generated content models help with this?  Should brands advertise to existing communities or create their own? 

Some companies have committed to exploring new media marketing channels. It is certainly something many companies are investigating: the FT states that advertising linked to online video is estimated to be worth about $300m but this is expected to grow to $1bn within the next few years. A recent example of a corporate adoption of a piece of user generated content is demonstrated by the infamous Backdorm Boys videoclip:

The Backdorm Boys – two students create video clips of themselves miming to their favourite songs and post the clips on a website. The clips quickly became a cult hit, forwarded to millions of people via email, 6 months later major soft drink company signs up backdorm boys for marketing campaign.

Is this the new advertising channel? Who knows. What we do know is that advertising is about engagement. Consumers are engaging with traditional advertising less: the audience is getting smarter, they have fatigue of spray and pray tactics and new technologies now offer the possibility of skipping ads altogether. Increasingly, advertising messages have to be tailored and personalised, and wherever possible, delivered to the individual. If a message is relevant, it will affect the user. However, moving beyond these broad principles, it gets tricky. How would you pick the hits? Can user generated content be trusted enough to attach to a precious corporate brand – as again by definition this medium is the most reflective of the views of the consumers and also, has the most scope to be tainted by extreme views.

How mass will user generated content be?

It is easy to get carried along with the hype, but is this really a big deal? What will have to change for user generated content to be a central source of content in the media market?

Firstly, as we stated earlier, user generated content remains a PC based activity – it requires some level of technical and technological ability, whether it is as transferring content across devices or simply using PC based programs. Media literacy tools will have to become more mainstream for user generated content to move from the younger generation and the technically enabled, to the mass, non-PC households.

What about public sector? How could the uncontrollable but very reactive user generated content be better exploited in public sector contexts from travel to health to education? If explored this could be a key channel to help engage the younger generations in political and social life – but the public sector has to be a slow moving beast. Surely, the most likely outcome is for innovative commercial models to evolve in the public sector space, drawing user/citizen generated content into public activities.

Debates for another day….

What are the legal ramifications of these new activities?  Are there liability risks of offering content you have not generated? How is risk perceived?

What are the civil order/civil liberty ramifications of user generated content? Do we want a society where a picture taken on a mobile phone on a train can be sent straight to the police station?

How open do we want to be? Is this all about everyone having the potential to access everything?  Where are the boundaries? How can closed internet communities give people a feeling of safety?

Capitalising on Convergence (pdf 2527KB) more»

Wikipedia definition of user generated content more»