…long live User Generated Context.

Havas Media Lab just released a very interesting strategy note about user generated content (or better: context). It’s very worth while reading - really good food for thought. Their core arguments are:

• More than 50% of connected consumers create content (!) and more than 80% of them rely on the content other consumers created (e.g. youTube videos, consumer reviews, etc)
• The media industry struggles heavily with the whole concept - the main problem is that we constantly mix up user generated content with user generated context (most users don’t create original content but provide context)
• Context for example is a user review: On it’s own it is pretty meaningless, once put into context with hundreds of other reviews it creates a ton of value
• Context complements content and thus increases the value of content dramatically - therefore if you are in the business of content creation you should do everything you can to allow the creation of context (discussions, ratings, links, etc)

The paper explores these points more deeply and also draws some interesting conclusions for their application. It’s definitely recommended reading.