I’ve been talking about user generated content and value for a while, so I was excited to read this post that links to a white paper on user generated context.
If you’ve heard me talk before about the value of user generated content, I’ve said, the valuable content is commercial in nature. Reviews of products, financial information, and travel plans are easily contextually matched to advertisers like Google does with Adsense. UGC that is less valuable is where it’s hard to get context like a photo, or a game, or personal rants with little commercial context. There are few advertisers that want to be matched to this type of content.
I think the Havas Media Lab has one piece right in that UGC that provides context is the valuable piece. Where it goes wrong is that context is created collectively, and what it means to investors and advertisers.
The reality is the number of content creators (me blogging) to consumers is so low that context is easily created by one person. The 300 or so people that read this post will be influenced one way or another. Some will come here and get this content, some in their RSS feed and some via a search engine. This one post, loosely connected to a graph will be enough to provide context to readers, and unfortunately, it won’t add much commercial context so the value is really very little. I’d be better off reviewing entrepreneur drugs like Provigil. Mike’s post on this is providing a ton of context where advertisers for the drug would love to be placed. Heck, if he had an affiliate link in that post, I bet he would have moved some serious inventory today making some decent money.
As for investors and advertisers, I think there is value in connecting context across a social graph. Some company will make a lot of money by doing this. But, for advertisers, it’s much more complicated. To replace traditional advertising to participate in the context created by thousands of users is impossible. But, advertisers can listen and be accountable. I think that’s their best move with UGC.
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