User-generated content is all the rage! Unfortunately, there is no such thing.
Users are not interested in generating __content__.
They are interested in __communicating__.
Blogs are not content. They are communication.
The “15 million” bloggers out there do not consider themselves publishers. Probably only a few hundred or a thousand of those bloggers are “publishing”. The rest of them are communicating. Just like they communicate over email or telephone or IM. They are regular folks who are just talking.
When the communication is captured so it is not ephemeral, you get what people are calling “user-generated content”. But it is not content at all, it is communication that has been recorded for all to see.
This distinction is subtle but very important. Don’t expect your users to generate content. Instead, support their efforts to communicate.
This is ultimately why I think John Doerr’s investment in [Zazzle](http://www.zazzle.com/) is a mistake. Zazzle might make a lot of money but it is not going to cut across everything we do on the internet. Zazzle is about creation, not communication, and there are not that many creators out there.
Full disclosure: I have never met John Doerr, I would bow down before him if I ever did meet him, I don’t know a damn thing about Zazzle’s strategy, and I can’t wait to be proven wrong about Zazzle.
Next time someone goes off on user-generated content, tell them the content creation market can be lucrative but it is limited to a few high-paying customers. On the other hand, the communication market has tons of low-paying customers.
I would love to get your thoughts on this.
Isn’t Flickr a successful example of user-generated content? Are the folks who post images there content creators or communicators under your dichotomy?
Vanity publishers were the major outlet for frustrated content creators in the old media. Presumably the market for vanity publishers is about to dry up.
Kevin Smokler has some provocative thoughts about reading and writing today.
Second Life (www.secondlife.com) is a great example of user-generated content happening and actually working. The entire game-world is user-created; Linden Lab (SL’s parent company) just makes money by selling accounts and acting as a dedicated hosting provider.
Isn’t the entire promise of web 2.0 that it makes the distinction between content and communication immaterial? Just looking at zazzle, i see that they let you make stamps with your own pictures on them! That is just cool. In your vernacular, you could say that it opens up the stamp section of a letter for communication, whereas before it could only contain professional content.
I’m sure you’ve already seen this, but I think it’s a decent analysis of the current state of the blogosphere:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=banish
Interesting point but I beg to differ.
I think the Web 2.0 model remains in its infancy because its seen as a communication model. The reason that user-generated content is baloney today is because people haven’t figured out a way to make people create content. Thats the Pandora box that entrepreneurs need to unlock.
Next time someone tells you about user generated content, ask them how they think that power can be unlocked.
To me, part of the distinction between “content” and “communication” is a sense of who it has worth to. (I’m sort of making this up on the fly, so it’s likely you’ll easily poke holes in my argument) Communication has worth to people who know me personally – my expression, recorded in whatever form, has value because of its context, specific to me, the creator. My blog contains a lot of personal crap, that’s essentialy valueless to joe schmoe internet user. Same with flickr, and the bulk of their pictures. Same with most of the kitchschy crap you’re likely to see on cafepress or zazzle.
Content, on the other hand, I take to have some sort of creator-independent value. Some of the photos on flickr are intended to be appreciated at their full potential by anyone. That, in my view, is content, whereas my random photos of friends are communication.
I guess the point is that I agree with the notion that there are very few content creators, and a lot of communicators. Some people are content to communicate the idea that they’re bad artists, I suppose, but it’s still not what I’d consider content.