Two seemingly unrelated developments this week in the world of user-generated content: Gather.com raises $10-million from a group of investors including Hearst Corp., McGraw-Hill and Pilot House Ventures to expand its citizen journalism business; and Michael Richards (aka Kramer) launches himself into a profanity-laced racist rant after someone heckled him during a stand-up comedy routine.
What the two developments have in common is they both involve user-generated content. Gather.com publishes it; Richards was thrust into the media spotlight because someone used a cell phone to record a video of his outburst. It has come to the point where everyone is becoming a journalist and nothing is private any more. It explains why “off the blog” may become a common disclaimer during personal and professional conversations – kind of like what CFOs dutifully read the Safe Harbour rules before a conference call.
At a time when traditional media under are siege, we're in the midst of a publishing renaissance/revolution where anyone can create and distribute whatever they want. It has spawned blogs, podcasts, video blogs, wikis, photo albums (Flickr, et al) and video libraries (YouTube, etc.).
But at what point does user-generated content cross the line? How much user-generated content does the world really need? And how does user-generated content get filtered for quality – if that's an issue at all? Don't get me wrong, user-generated content is wonderful and has changed how we produce, distribute and share information but I wonder there's a limit on how much content needs to be product and how much of this content can be consumed.
As well, how will the nature of user-generated content change as next-generation players such as blog networks become more established, while traditional media players, who have been on their heels in recent years, start to re-load strategically and get a strong foothold. Will major brands dominant the user-generated content landscape – leaving less room for the independents (including individuals)? Will the emergence of dominant players be good for user-generated content with the establishment of quality standards? It's all the unanswered questions that makes this phenomenon so fascinating.
Update: Some more thoughts on user-generated content and social networks (specifically about Digg.com) can found on Tech Beat.
I like the idea of filtering user generated content, or adding some sort of QA/QC into the mix. Maybe there could be some sort of rating system where if someone screws up, they get some sort of slap on the wrist. I envision it like ebay where transactions get rated as either positive, negative, or neutral. If a USER has 1,500 posts, or other user generated content, and all are rated as positive or neutral, they probably have something of value to add.
Mark you have raised some very interesting questions regarding the degree to which user-generated content is beneficial and the degree to which we should embrace it.
My personal opinion is that user-generated content, especially in the case of user-driven media, is still in an experimental phase. Only time will tell us how this experiment pans out. We can see Digg being a victim of its own popularity, but I think they have the ability to come out on top. They just need to listen to the criticism and embrace the solutions.