user generated content

The User Generated Content myth.

June 24, 2007 By Dan Thornton

You know how everyone, their dog, and their dog’s dog is talking about User Generated Content, Engagement, and how everyone is dying to upload their lives onto the internet, if only they had the chance?

Bill Tancer from web audience measurement firm Hitwise has some stats for you:

0.16% of the people visiting Youtube are uploading videos.

0.2% are visiting Flickr to upload images.

Wikipedia has the biggest involvement at 4.6%

That’s not to say they aren’t immensely popular, and getting more so by the second.

“But despite relatively low-user involvement, visits to Web 2.0-style sites have spiked 668 percent in two years”

The lesson is that millions want to be able to take a peek at the private lives of others, and displaying User Generated Content is a great way to build an audience and get traffic. But don’t expect a huge amount of content to suddenly appear overnight. Especially if your site isn’t a giant like Youtube or Flickr. Because if they’re getting 0.2%, you can bet a site with a smaller audience will get far less than 0.2% uploading. After all, what kind of exhibitionist targets smaller groups of people?

What a week!

June 20, 2007 By Dan Thornton

It’s been a bit of a busy 7-10 days, but I’ve finally committed to filling in the unfortunate blog deficit.

– I’ve been chatting a fair bit to Howard Webster, the creator, writer, publisher, organiser and driving force behind The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore, which is ‘second generation graphic novel’, in that it mixes comics, old black and white archive footage, and live action shot with actors including British thespian Colin Salmon. Even more interesting for me is the fact that all the assets from the ‘official’ production can be downloaded and used to create user content, with mash-ups of audio, video etc. And if that wasn’t enough, Howard has an annoying habit of just coming out with other ground-breaking ideas in the middle of a conversation. In a 30 minute catch-up he came out with two or three evolutions of the idea, all of which could stand on their own. And all of which were very interesting. I won’t say more, but I’m currently writing a feature on the project for Disposable Media, out on June 28, so make sure you check it out.

– I’ve also been contacted by Catherine Toole from Sticky Content about a variety of things, including her forthcoming presentation at Online Marketing 2007. I have to say, from previous experience, and the teaser on the Sticky Content blog, it’ll be one of the presentations worth seeing, as it’s rare to see someone combining a obvious passion for social media, with a balanced view of what can go wrong, and then coming up with the solutions that brands and managers often need spelt out for them. I’m just working out whether I can justify a day or two out of the office to pop down and give my support.

-Before this gets to epic length, I’ve also now become one of these accursed ‘evangelists’ for technology. (I’ll never use that term again, I promise). After upgrading my own aged laptop to Windows 2000 Professional (I’m a luddite geek), I suddenly twigged I didn’t have any decent Office-type programmes. No MS Word for example. So I went and downloaded Open Office.
Blimey. Everything I could need for a home PC, in one reasonably-sized download, and with no obvious problems as yet. Why would I ever bother with paying for similar programmes? The only thing I can see me doing in future is investing in a USB stick big enough to carry everything I need around with me.

User engagement ain’t always easy…

June 6, 2007 By Dan Thornton

Almost every brand and company is now looking to jump on the user content and creation bandwagon before it roles out of town. And as the internet is all about people creating, it seems pretty logical.

But for managers and executives more than one step removed from the process, it can seem such as easy way to get some adverts or marketing. But the penny is starting to drop. The NY Times has covered the troubles the Heinz brand has faced, with a call for five Youtube videos good enough to air on TV so far resulting in 370 entries which simply aren’t making the grade:

Free registration is required to view the full article, here.

“But these companies have found that inviting consumers to create their advertising is often more stressful, costly and time-consuming than just rolling up their sleeves and doing the work themselves. Many entries are mediocre, if not downright bad, and sifting through them requires full-time attention. And even the most well-known brands often spend millions of dollars upfront to get the word out to consumers.”

It seems like a good time to remind everyone that the most well known examples of Youtube videos are the fake (Lonelygirl15), or individuals that have then been adopted by companies (Miming to music videos etc). And when Doritos invested in a similar campaign, it cost $1.3million.