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They have been largely caught unawares by the growth of such sites as Flickr, YouTube, OhMyNews and MySpace. Their growth stems from both better broadband availability and the increased scope for tribalism, identity expression and personalisation that user-generated content provides. Paul Saffo of the marvellously titled Institute of the Future notes that this could herald a 'Cambrian explosion' of creativity: a flowering of expressive diversity on the scale of the eponymous proliferation of biological species 530 million years ago. So what does this trend mean for wireless carriers? John Delaney looks at the implications.

Mobile operators are well-placed to benefit from the explosion of interest in user-generated content (UGC). It fits well as an extension of the trend to personalize that is already so successful in the mobile environment, and offers a way to monetize the wealth of 'user-generated content' currently residing (unsent) on mobile terminals worldwide.

Other trends facilitating the growth in content include: The growth in storage capacity, coupled with ever cheaper prices. The growth of standardized, non-proprietary capacity in mobile phones encourages both sharing across other devices and upgrading.

The medical industry is one that sees a lot of UGC. A search on YouTube finds thousands of videos of people talking about their illnesses, from cancer sufferers to people with bullemia. Support groups are flourishing and people are finding that sharing experiences and content online is sometimes easier than face-to-face. Talking about your experiences to video and uploading this to YouTube for others to respond to and comment on is probably easier than discussing it in real life. The internet and social networks probably offer access to a greater number of fellow-sufferers than even a local support group might offer. Beyond support, people can use social media and user-generated content to help understand their illnesses. The supposed danger here is that people will self-diagnose and that this may be incorrect. At the same time, you’d expect that privacy issues would prevent any meaningful and useful exchange of ideas. But in fact, user-generated medical content is a vibrant example of how the social networking and online communities can be powerful for exchanging information.

A report by Jupiter Research in 2007 showed that 20% of Americans turn to others online for information about medical issues. They are clearly not shy of seeking or giving advice, even on more personal issues. They use sites such as OrganizedWisdom, a Wiki-style community, to share information they have and get information they need. The concern over the accuracy of this information still stands, with worries about non-medical professionals sharing information that people use to self-diagnose. But research by the British Medical Journal in 2004 found that in the online support communities it studied only 6% of content was incorrect. If this replicated across all medical content online then it would probably be among some of the more accurate user-generated content on the internet. User-generated medical content shows that people are willing to share and are accurate when they do so. Even in a more niche and potentially risky area such as medical advice and disgnosis, the quality and usefulness of user-generated content is high.

User Generated Content Conference & Expo

Feb. 9-10 in San Jose

User-Generated Content Is Top Threat to Media and Entertainment Industry, Accenture Survey Finds

User-Generated Content Is Top Threat to Media and Entertainment Industry, Accenture Survey Finds

spent a lot of time and effort trying to deny the fact that there exists a potential (and for that matter reality) for significant amounts of User Generated Content, or UGC.

only 1% of a community typically contributes content to that community, the rest simply acting as consumers.

deviation from the norm (or the fad factor), the unique, timely, and utility of the content, and the fact that the content creation is seamless and effortless for those making it.

Online video is renegotiating its (problematic) relationship with cinema. It deals with cinematographic principles versus the principles of the online age. We cannot directly transfer the cinematographic principles into the online age as new media has its own specificities. YouTube is not just video on the web but YouTube is a natively digital object. Ten years ago Lev Manovich proposed to consider the database as the (new) dominant media form. The database is the hegemonic media form online, as can be seen on YouTube, Flickr, MySpace and Google. We should think beyond technology now the database is also becoming a dominant social form. The database is shaping the social.

New social media behaviors Both hardware and software (and interfaces if we choose to put the interface between hardware and software instead of seeing it as software) direct new users to turn their media into social media. YouTube pushes you to interact by offering a wide abundance of “social options” such as Share/Post video/Add to groups etc. I recognize this trend in the use of my new mobile phone. Not only is it my first mobile phone with an integrated camera it also gives me the option to publish a picture on the web immediately. This has been made even easier by installing a piece of software called Shozu that immediately pops up a “Send to Flickr” dialog after I have taken a picture. This causes me to upload nearly every picture I take to Flickr. My mobile phone creates new social media behaviors.