Tapping the grapevine: User-generated content
Tuesday, May 1 2001
CONTENT IS DESCRIBED IN MANY WAYS ON THE INTERNET. MOST DESCRIBE IT AS THE WORDS AND PICTURES PROVIDED ONLINE BY MARKETERS AND EDITORS TO ATTRACT CONSUMERS TO A WEB SITE. BUT INCREASINGLY, WEB USERS ARE ATTRACTED BY THE CREATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THEIR PEERS.
The opinions and debate of a lively political discussion area; the sales-haggling advice offered in an auto forum; the shared appreciation of a cult rock band on a music site-such community exchanges have inspired electronic networkers since the 1980s to extol the value of the content that individuals bring to an online meeting place. Focused, high-quality online conversation extends the definition of "content" beyond the actual words on the screen to include the ongoing relationships built among the word providers.
When the Web interface first appeared in the early 1990s, its early users created all of its content. As the Web was commercialized, business plans described a sharp distinction between "information providers" and "information consumers." Today, that distinction is being de-emphasized by forward-thinking Web businesses who have seen how expensive "manufactured" content is to produce while noting how eager people are to inform and hear from each other. This is not obscure knowledge put to use only on fringe culture sites. In fact, two of the most successful revenue-producers on the Web have led the way in making user-created content essential to their business models.
