I’m sick of hearing about “user created content”

Isn't your entire job based on "User Created Content"? You read blogs, you write blogs, you film, you evangelize...all from a user perspective. And it's not like it's a bad catch phrase, it's simple, direct and meaninful, while not being too contrived, like Web 2.0.

I'm just having a conversation here. It's that they look at me as a way to create stuff to stick ads next to.

Are you objecting to the phrase because its being used in a wrong way? An unprofitable way? Not clear.

Of course UCC is important to the future of media - because tools are being created allowing users to control their content experience, now more than ever.

However, companies are experiencing relative levels of success getting users to come to THEIR site to create the content they will inevitably create.

So, no surprise that companies are talking about it...what's not clear is if they're going to do anything about it that adds value to their companies. That "Google base" idea certainly seems like it has great potential to turn UCC into $$$...where's MSFT's equivalent?

It's more the tone, and frequency in which I'm hearing it. They don't love it. They just see a way to profit off of it.

Well, you have a pretty wide readership. Change the conversation. How would you prefer to refer to this sort of thing?

For the moment I'm coming up short on ideas. Individually-created content? The Milk of the Blogosphere?

Every year, as I get older and see more of the way the world works, I get more discouraged by the way the whole world becomes one giant profit engine to some people.

Yeah this the same story that shel blogged about too. But- its a diffferent tune, where marketing exec's think that blog content will increase brand equity !! How stupid!!
User content is in the conversation. Read, listen and learn from conversations is what I tell folks.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe MSFT is in business to make profits for its shareholders. The notion that MSFT *loves* everything it produces always and secondarily to its profit potential seems a bit strange.

Scoble, you seem to be saying you'd prefer they love UCC for the sake of UCC, secondary to profit. But I would think if they can profit off of it, they *would* love it!

Is there a difference between loving UCC for its own sake and loving it for what it can do for your business? What are the meaningful differences?

See what I like about Scoble is he isn't blogging because MS is making him, nor is he blogging about what they want him to blog about.

He is a geek's geek. (borrowing from a man's man phrase)

He blogged before microsoft, he will blog after microsoft if they so foolishly let him go. Profits are one thing, how do you maximize profits tho? Build better solutions for your end users!

The whole point of Robert and getting everyone at MS to blog is to build close ties with customers as to give them the product that they want.

There have been a few products scoble has thrown hate against and said microsoft could do so much better, he is helping us as much as he is helping the company.

Hahah, it's not a religion, it's user-created content, actually it's perfect naming. There is Employee generated content, third-party content and End User content. Simple. The medium is not a message. But if it ticks off bloggers so much, bound to become my hot new phrase. ;)

I just don't like it. Seems too... impersonal. I refer to Scoble by his last or first name, when he mentions key blogs I recognize them, we aren't just users. I like blogsphere better.

Amen Stefan !!

Yeah we ant jus users- we are bloggers !!

hey! speak for yourself. i AM just a user. :)

(and here is my content for you... generated for me just for you!)

(oops, a joke gone bad due to a typo... "generated by me" I meant ... sorry for spamming the comments, I hope wordpress doesn't have a rate-limiting spam blocker)

My question is: What is user created content? From the perspective of someone who designs, say, a child's coloring book in Adobe Illustrator, the artistic renditions in wax crayon by a child are User Created Content.

To Adobe, however, the coloring book itself is UCC.

To Metrowerks (creators of Codewarrior), Adobe Illustrator is UCC.

And so on and so forth. We're all users to somebody.

Hi Robert-

I don't know that i agree with your thinking....


Here is the way I see it:

User Generated Content is.... content that some company didn't have to pay people to manufacture.


Flickr, del.icio.us / digg.com, myspace, linkedin, various bloggers, a lot of the 'web2.0' crowd, etc:

They didn't have to pay photographers to take the pictures and then license those pictures.

They didn't have to pay journalists and editors a salary to spend all day dreaming up things to write about (like if you were CNN or WSJ).

They didn't have to hire employees to think of clever sites to review or list out.

They didn't have to pay anyone to score the information and categorize it.

...and as a result, they amassed two things:
1) a lot of content that is growing very quickly
2) viewers/readers/people interacting with this content


Paying people to build content costs big bucks and creates overhead. Big costs and big overhead make it difficult to scale a company quickly.

This is exactly why Yahoo is better off getting content from elsewhere instead of trying to hire your own newsdesk, talking heads, or blah blah blah resources that require salaries and $$$$. It is also likely the reason that your crew has bought many of these startups instead of hiring talk show personalities or gifted journalists to the Yahoo payroll.


Why is this better to have user generated content instead? Because businesses based on this type of content are more scalable and less likely to reach a growth plateau.
Content is still king.... owning the distribution channel is no longer necesary.

The more personalized, niche, and late breaking content that you have, the better off you are.


It would be impossible for a startup to build this amount of content on their own... and even if they could, the business wouldn't scale.


....and hence.... user generated content is better than corporate generated content. Any way you slice it, there are more users than employees. And why such a generic term is applicable.

Personally, I like the term 'user generated content'.... it is simple, clean, and short... even if the masters of the blogoverse don't like it. :-)

Best,
E. David Zotter