Reuters: User-generated content good for old media-report. Traditional media companies are ideally placed to benefit from the explosion of user-generated content and should see it as an opportunity and not a threat even though the potential revenue is limited, a report says.
Clearly true. But one big question is whether the media organizations will see this is a cheap way to get “free” content or help create an ecosystem that rewards people who are contributing the information.
If the former, they’re creating an unsustainable system. If the latter, the media ecosystem will grow more diverse.
on Jan 3rd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
“If the former, they’re creating an unsustainable system …”
Why do you say that? The evidence seems to be overwhelming to the contrary.
I mean, it would be *nice* if it were otherwise. But that’s true of a lot of things.
Casinos haven’t gone out of business, even though it’s a cliche that the house always win (in the end).
on Jan 4th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Seth, the evidence to date is only reflecting the early days of this phenomenon. At some point, people won’t be willing to just give away things that other people make a lot of money re-using.
The casino analogy doesn’t work for me. Gambling is for idiots, in my opinion (apart from poker, which takes some actual skill). People seem to do it for entertainment as much as anything else, though.
on Jan 4th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Dan, serious question: What evidence would you accept as at least being worth casting serious doubt? That is, “early days” can always be said, so it can become an unfalsifiability. Sort of like some social theories which have a “transition period” which never ends.
The basic structure of a “user generated content” business seems very *sustainable* – each contributor is essentially powerless, with no bargaining ability, and if you don’t want the “job”, there’s a bunch of other people who do. From a certain viewpoint, it amazes me how some people who are otherwise liberals end up touting the worst sort of assembly-line corporate structure as just the greatest thing ever.
This type of business organization is very well-known, and for a rough summary for a short comment, tends to produce a “race to the bottom”, NOT profit-sharing.
It’s not that I like that outcome, but it seems so obvious.
on Jan 4th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
No, the early days aren’t indefinite. What’s unclear is whether we’ll see a business model developed where willing buyers and sellers have equivalent information, if not power, in an aggregate sense. I don’t know.
on Jan 4th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
At what point would you be willing to make a tentative judgment of likelihood? (as opposed to a final pronouncement)
The sad evidence seems to be that, for a given amount of money, it’s much more sustainable to hire a few skilled marketers to try to convince the crowd that working for free is entertaining or a matter of civic virtue, than it is to pay the contributors much (oh, maybe there’s a prize or two as part of the lottery-like nature, but almost everyone will get nothing but the joy and happiness of being part of the community).
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/sharecropping_t.php
“It’s a sharecropping system, but the sharecroppers are generally happy because their interest lies in self-expression or socializing, not in making money, and, besides, the economic value of each of their individual contributions is trivial. It’s only by aggregating those contributions on a massive scale – on a web scale – that the business becomes lucrative. To put it a different way, the sharecroppers operate happily in an attention economy while their overseers operate happily in a cash economy. In this view, the attention economy does not operate separately from the cash economy; it’s simply a means of creating cheap inputs for the cash economy.”
on Jan 8th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
“What’s unclear is whether we’ll see a business model developed where willing buyers and sellers have equivalent information, if not power, in an aggregate sense. I don’t know.”
Dan,
I think it’s quite possible! I actually suggested something like this to Craig (at a time when I wasn’t doubting his motives much): it had to do with craigslist acting as a neutral intermediary (not charging anything) between scraping sites and willing ad posters (that would give individual permission for particular ads to be posted on the scraping sites), with the aggregate money from the scraping sites going towards meeting common needs of ad posters (improvements etc., whatever they collectively agreed that money should be spent on).
Delia
P.S. I have a hunch somebody will start a “people$list” at some point (an all the way non-profit that would provide the function of craigslist and much more); I believe it would be a great set-up for the kind of things you seem to be talking about. D.
on Mar 1st, 2007 at 8:06 am
Os “YOU” beneficiam media tradicionais…
Traditional media companies are ideally placed to benefit from the explosion of user-generated content and should see it as an opportunity and not a threat even though the potential revenue is limited
…é o que diz um relatório da empresa Deloit…