User-driven media - the wisdom and foolishness of crowds

1
User-driven media - the wisdom and foolishness of
crowds

• Graham Young
• Founder
• Chief Editor
• On Line Opinion
• 19th April, 2007

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What user-generated content says about
user-generated content

• User-generated content (UGC) refers to various
  kinds of media content that are produced or
  primarily influenced by end-users, as opposed to
  traditional media producers, licensed
  broadcasters and production companies.
• Source Wikipedia http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use
  r-generated_content

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Examples

• MySpace
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Wikipedia
• Daily Kos
• IndyMedia
• On Line Opinion

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U.G.C. is like S.E.X.

• Every generation thinks they discovered it!

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Historically most content has been user generated

• Myths Yarns
• Music
• Pamphletts
• Games Shows
• Talk-back radio
• Dictionary

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Vanity Publishing

• Most content on the net is self-published
• Difference between standard Vanity Publishing and
  extreme User-Generated Content?
• Published on the fly
• Transparently collaborative

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Confusing technology and contentThis is a
traditional use of a new medium

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v5M66J3th2Ns
• So is this
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vOAdhMLaEWLM

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This isnt

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v6h3G-lMZxjo

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Why has User Produced Content taken off?

• Produsers
• About me
• About community
• Publisher
• Profitable
• Scalable

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Produsers

• Me (and sex)
• Sophies MySpace
• Britney Spears Blog
• Community
• Larvatus Prodeo
• On Line Opinions

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Publishers

• Profit
• MySpace
• Scalable
• Wikipedia

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Disadvantages

• Chaotic lose human scale in the scalability
• Time Consuming
• Small pay-off for large effort
• Trivial and low quality

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The curse of metrics

• Hits
• Page Views
• Bandwidth
• Time spent
• Entry Pages
• Exit Pages
• Geo-Location
• Whats in a Mane

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My favourite radio program

• http//www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/default.htm
• Why?
• 3 audience share

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The power of one
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How much real impact does UCG have?

• Most influential media for elections Radio 15,
  Newspapers 14, Internet 11, TV 11, Social 10,
  Paid media 6. Reflects a decline in both
  newspapers and TV and the rise of the Internet.
• Most reliable Public Radio 84, Public TV 84,
  Websites 52, Newspapers 35, Free Circulars -8,
  Commercial Radio -23, Commercial TV -25
• Internet Sites used ABC 39, SMH 19, Age 12,
  Crikey 11, WikiNews 3.
• Only 6 used blogs.

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On Line Opinion

• Metrics
• Most popular politics site 2006 Hitwise
• 21 out of 75 News and Weather sites Nielsen
  NetRatings
• 145,000 unique browsers per month Nielsen
• 350,000 unique browsers per month server
• 450,000 page views per month Nielsen
• 1.25M page views per month - server

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On Line Opinion cont

• Impact
• Read by politicians, researchers and policy
  makers
• 25 in higher ed.
• 6 from ACT
• Constantly scanned by mainstream media for
  content and talent.

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Our approach to UCG

• Quality
• Community
• Scalability
• Research
• Income

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Income

• Advertising
• Expected Gross 80,000 approx 2006/07
• Forum
• 37.5 of site visits
• Moderation etc. 1 day per week
• Serving costs
• Programming

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Income continued

• On Line Opinion
• 62.5 of site visits
• Editing 7 days per week
• Serving 4000
• UCG
• Relatively profitable
• Potentially serves same economic purpose as
  classifieds

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Impact

• Number of times Ive been contacted by a
  journalist wanting to contact a participant in
  the forum?
• Number of times Ive been contacted by a
  journalist wanting to contact an author?
• Number of times an author has been contacted
  directly by a journalist wanting an interview or
  information?

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Impact

• Why do I owe you one? Last week JJJ called me,
  wanting to interview me on their Hack program
  about the upgrade piece I wrote. Thing is, they
  found it on OO, not his own publication! I
  (sorry to say) set them right, explained how you
  pick up our stories, and did the interview, and
  plugged both sites
• Email of 17/4/7 from the editor of another
  publication whose work we had republished

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Research

• Sydney University Contributors
• Speed of publishing cycle
• Instantaneous feedback
• Media profile

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Research

• What the people want
• Panel of 5000
• Monthly surveys
• Qualitative not quantitative
• Generates media
• Report back

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Research continued

• Site Stats

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Community

• 30 Volunteer editors
• Help with moderation
• Feedback on site
• Volunteers for election site

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Scalability

• iParliament
• Virtual personal site/blog for every Australian
  politician
• Ozelections
• Dating site for candidates for election

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Digital Citizen ARC Linkages Project

• Coverage of the 2007 Federal Election
• Citizen Journalists
• Journalism faculties across the country
• Blog/Wiki style publishing system
• Volunteer editors

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Guiding principles

• User Generated Content is the oldest form of
  content
• What is new is that it is transparently
  collaborative and instantaneous
• Like growing crystals it needs careful design
• It can provide energy that you can capture
• Its more often a means to an end than an end in
  itself

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Its not about popularity and metrics
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Its about impact