UGC Is Dead, Pt. XXVI
By Andrew Wallenstein
So good of Business Week to shovel a few more clumps of dirt on the coffin of user-generated content. This just in it's not: Advertisers would prefer to deal with professional content producers.
For the record, I sang this song before it was cool to pile on UGC like jocks on Corey Haim in the penultimate scene of "Lucas" (sorry, was up late watching HBO the other night).
But as I read this umpteenth obituary for UGC, a prediction popped into my head. Watch some savvy entrepreneur figure out a way to sift through the 95% of useless crap that comprises UGC and monetize the hell out of that 5%. Just when we thought UGC was dead and buried, someone will zag to PGC's zig and we'll all be hailing the Big Comeback.
UGC is dead. Long live UGC.
Deader than dead. Nah. If it weren't so damn entertaining, why would everyone watch it?
Posted by: Mark Schoneveld | November 21, 2007 at 07:39 AM
In defense of Andy's point, it isn't that UGC isn't entertaining or popular. It's that it's incredibly difficult to harness for advertising purposes. Most advertisers require a modicum of dependability; while UGC is many things, it's not dependable.
Posted by: Steve Bryant | November 24, 2007 at 09:28 AM