User generated content is worthless!
Written on 2nd June 2008
15 COMMENTS 
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Michael Arrington published an interesting article yesterday, concerned about the sheer amount of UGC being generated, ’spewing’ out onto a world where the signal to noise ratio is being lowered daily.
We have evermore tools allowing users to create, capture and clutter the Internet, all of which is forcing the attention span of consumers down to seconds.
Consumers are bombarded with messages and streams from feeds and sources which at some point along the way were picked up and are now spewing out of every conceivable crevice. All competing for attention, but the louder they become the easier they are to ignore.
But the essence of Mike’s desire is this: “we need open standards and businesses to emerge that help people link all their disconnected content together into a single online identity”, he goes on “to enhance real world social interactions”.
Aggregating all this spewing data solves the disjoint information problem sure, but this does nothing to curate all that data down to the most interesting nuggets.
I would argue that simply aggregating data into a single online identity is not going to enhance real world social interactions, but instead decrease our attention span even further.
Instead what will be successful are tools that curate all this noise in unique ways, ways that save us time, guessing what we need and predicting when we need it, then serving it on a plate like the morning paper.
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By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on Jun 3, 2008
Like Socialmedian.com? They filter ugc by comparing it with users who have similar interest and email a summary every morning. They even ask whether you want milk with it: http://thenextweb.org/2008/05/.....l-invites/
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By Steven Carrol on Jun 3, 2008
Yes exactly like Socialmedian. I am really both pleased to have found this (god knows how I missed this one) and slightly disappointed. Not disappointed that I didn’t have the idea myself, because I did, I have been thinking about such a product for a few months. I’m just disappointed that these guys are doing it and not me. lol. That’s life. Well now I have signed up to Socialmedian and I expect milk with that too!
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By Steven Carrol on Jun 3, 2008
This is another interesting product trying to achieve the same goals, I.e lower the noise.
techcrunch.com/2008/06/02/the-filter-launches-with-a-message-from-peter-gabriel/
Very interesting.
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By Zara on Jun 3, 2008
I don’t agree that user generated content is worthless – I guess you said that to scare the pants off a few businesses that have brought into social media! ?
Bookmarking and things like friendfeed and twitter are trying to direct feeds of content across many networks
- so in theory, where ever the surfer goes on-line they can tap into their content – share video’s and photos where ever they happen to be hanging out, chatting, surfing that day.
The advertisers are still trying to adapt to this channel hopping – so it’s a case of the webmaster having to create new ’sticky’ to keep the surfer from hopping so quickly,
Some are currently doing this by trying to add all the social networks, bookmarking websites to their channel so the person will feel, that site has it all – but you still need a community (and community leaders) to gel it all together.
“Instead what will be successful are tools that curate all this noise in unique ways, ways that save us time, guessing what we need and predicting when we need it, then serving it on a plate like the morning paper.”
- I agree with that part – it’s why I started a ‘news summary’ video show to pick out articles of others that I’ve dugg to my blog and dish them up as headlines – about 5 of them served up by a human (me) every few days.
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By Steven Carrol on Jun 3, 2008
Hi Zara,
User generated content in raw form is worthless. That does not mean you cannot make value out of it by curating it into valuable content. That’s the main problem we have, finding the compelling content and mixing it, in such a way to make a good tasty meal.
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By Zara on Jun 3, 2008
What you mean by worthless ? – maybe it’s just your term that confuses me, use can be made of just about any content on-line, niche marketing depends on a wide variety of content to choose from, one persons junk is another persons treasure, that’s how eBay started out I think ?
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By Steven Carrol on Jun 3, 2008
By worthless, I mean, unorganized it is valueless. Once it has been curated, mixed with other ingredients, collated into a palatable form that is served upon request, then it turns into something valuable…
;)
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By Lars Teigen on Jun 3, 2008
The point of aggregating everything into a single point is to be able to create smart features for organization, filtering and recommendation.
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By Steven Carrol on Jun 3, 2008
Hi Lars,
I’m not sure it is necessary to first have to aggregate ‘everything’ first. I would imagine you could organise, filter, and recommend more intelligently than having the burden of storing all that data, which can become overload.
You secondbrain concept seems interesting but I personally think without the latter features being core to the product the signal to noise ration will only get worse.
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By Lars Teigen on Jun 3, 2008
Thanks Steven,
Right now, we’re working on getting the basics of organizing, curating, mixing and collating content into a more structured form.
Serving content upon request, filtering and recommending will be the next big step that we will take. I agree that that’s where you’ll find the real opportunities and user benefits.
You’re of course invited to take Secondbrain for a spin when you have some time. I’d be happy to introduce you to S|B personally.
Lars
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By Steven Carrol on Jun 3, 2008
Hi Lars,
Actually as I mention above in a comment, I’m really interested in this space and have been thinking about building a product with some ideas I have to lay on top. So I’m not best pleased that you have all beating me past the first fence lol. I think what I will do is a round up of all similar services in this space, but I tell you, you’re on to something.
I would appreciate hearing about any more that are similar in this space. I’m just looking at Twine now.
Steve
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By Lars Teigen on Jun 3, 2008
So we have a common interest in this space:) I could get you some input on that article if you need some insight, (my general perspective of course, not just about S|B).
Pls email me on lars at mydomain and we could perhaps talk some more.
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By simone on Jun 3, 2008
We have been using all the user generated content UGC (reviews of guests) which we received as a restaurant site iens.nl (the Dutch Zagat ons can say) each year for a condense editorial piece for each restaurant which reflected all the reviews. From those editorial pieces based on UGC we made books and we put the editorial pieces (for thousands of restaurants) on the website yearly under each restaurant. The writing of these pieces is based on strict guidelines as to the do’s and the dont’s and it involves a huge amount of work and it means that you have to read almost everything and involve a lot of culinary editors for a short period of time who are able to weight all the reviews etc. Is this what you mean by ‘curated, mixed with other ingredients, collated into a palatable form that is served upon request, then it turns into something valuable…” There is always the discussion whether all this work for these ed. pieces is worth it each year, or whether you should only show all the reviews and let people scroll through them themselves.
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By Steven Carrol on Jun 3, 2008
Simone, it sounds like your doing it right IMO, If you was to let spammers, gamers, competitors, etc. see that they would gain by playing your system you would have no value. Loose your curators or system and loose your quality.
Steve
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By Rob on Jun 20, 2008
Don’t get too pissed!
Web 2.0 is becoming an era of two platforms: The human race learning to express itself over the Internet; and, The development of tools, which the human race uses to express itself.
Get pissed instead at the next platform, the Human Platform – People as the Platform – when someone becomes bright enough to use this human expression like a sword.
http://web3solutions.blogspot.com
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