DoingMedia

Who thinks of these terms? And why do we let them? User Generated Content (UGC) is less the buzzword than it was, oh say, 6 months ago. But I have yet to read anyone setting the record straight. So here goes: User Generated Content is a Myth. Beyond being a myth, User Generated Content is just insulting. We need a new, more accurate, more polite phrase that describes the “what” (content) without making people feel like things that operate. Without depersonalizing activity that is increasingly more personal and intimate.

Are you Content?

Are you content with “content?” I am. The word “content” its not actually offensive, at least not to me.

This is one of those bucket, catchall nouns that acts like a superset for other nouns. “Content” allows me to put all sorts of wonderful things inside: my thoughts, a picture, a song, messages. So the “content” in User Generated Content is not really a bad thing. I’m content with that.

There are no such thing as “Users”

The thorn in my side is this “users” term. Are you a user? Because I’m not. The term is just an easy way to objectify people. Or depersonalize a person. Where did it come from? The term “user” started in the old software development world. Since developers never knew who they were implementing a piece of software for they shorthanded “people who use the system” to “users”.

Software has become a larger element in our lives and is now actually designed rather than implemented. So designers and user experience folk started working with personas, a kind of paper doll stand in for a person. A persona describes a typical person who might visit a website or use a piece of software. The description may include a picture and information about likes, dislikes, age, where they live, how much they earn, their education and almost anything else a designer might need to know to create the best experience. The enlighted refer to people who use a piece of software or visit a website as “people” or “visitors”. So there is no “user” in User Generated Content. To paraphrase Charleton Heston: “Users are People!”

What did you generate today?

What you’re doing right now is called “reading.” What I did so you could read this is called writing. I could have drawn a picture. Or composed a song. Before I start writing I think about what I’ll say. I don’t know about you but I do not “generate” anything. What I do is “create” in all of it’s various manifestations: write, draw, compose, think, etc.

When I finish creating my message I can keep it to myself or I can share it. I can give it to you as a post in my blog. Or submit it as a comment on your blog. Or upload it somewhere for Everyone to see. So we create things and then we give/post/submit/upload/contribute them to someone or something else. Let’s leave generation to the power plants.

Let’s Break It Down

User: There are no “users”, only people.

Generated: People don’t “generate,” power plants do. People create.

Content: A great catchall for all those thing that people “create.” (At least the buzzworders got something right!)

What does that leave us with — “People Created Content”? Ah, that’s pretty awkward. For a website or blog the word visitor works well (or shopper or subscriber.) Let’s play with this a little bit. People could be “person”. “Person Created Content” just doesn’t flow, does it? “Human?” Uh, no.

Maybe take it back to the core: content. We’re trying to describe content. If people create it then maybe its “personal.” “Personally Created Content?” That rings more true. So, we have a new term for what used to be “User Generated Content”: “Personally Created Content.”

What is NOT User Generated Content?

Blog posts are not User Generated Content

Blog posts are clearly personally generated content. Sometimes a monologue which sometimes unintentionally turns into a dialogue. (See the next section.) Blog software and online technology (Wordpress, MySpace, etc.) enabled millions of people to build their own website. Some are quite personal and some quite commercial.

I think it was much nicer before MSM (mainstream media) and clever marketers caught hold of Peter Merholz’s “blog” term and made it so much more than a casual noun or verb. I liked the noun form better. OK, so “website creation tool” or “content management system” doesn’t have that certain something. (In fact, if you think of “blog” as a sound, it can provide awhole new picture of the material all of these new websites are made of.)

Blog comments are not User Generated Content

Blog comments are a little different. I would classify a blog comment as a “Personal Content Contribution.” Except for the “Me too!” or “Thanks!” type comments, they are the other side of a conversation. Actually, a very different kind of conversation, one in which everyone waits their turn and no one speaks over someone else. (There is the occasional belligerent/nasty/mean/very bad commenter but they can be filtered by the blogger or by the community of commenters.)

YouTube is not User Generated Content

YouTube (blip.tv, Yahoo Video, etc.) are like public access cable television with a million channels. It’s a video sharing site with personally generated content that has been enabled by cheap video production, editing and compression technology. Very cool yet, alas, not generated by users but created (and then posted) by people. There is something of a chicken and egg thing going on here. Without the cheap video technology, services like YouTube may have never created the concept or the compression technology to share videos. And before YouTube, were all of these little videos being created and just aching to be shared? Did YouTube serve a demand or create one?

Flickr is not User Generated Content

Flickr, Photobucket and the like are not User Generated Content. They are photo sharing services. What is posted or uploaded to Flickr, etc. is “shared personal content.” (Or could be just “personal content” if it’s marked “private.”) Like the video sharing services, the question is was there demand before or did the demand come after?

Forums and listservs are not User Generated Content

I’m almost finished beating this dead horse. Forums and listservs are not User Generated Content. They are ongoing conversations that are the predecessors of the blog post/comment dialogues we have today. (Oh, how I long for the old bulletin board term/metaphor.)

We must get more humane about how we describe what we do and how we do it. “User Generated Content” is not it. (You or) I speak or write or sing or draw or sign messages. “Content” contains the message I want to communicate to you. You may be the royal you or the personal you, it doesn’t matter. You or I (”Us”) not users, “creating” not generating, content.

Get the message?