User Generated Content. The Good, The Bad and The Not-so-Ugly.
Is the fact that you can produce and share content online easily, for free, a good or bad thing, and why?
User Generated Content is a huge part of the web. Anything from writing a comment on your friend’s status to uploading your holiday pictures on Flickr, Tweeting about that TV Show you’re watching or making films on YouTube. All of these are examples of User Generated Content of UGC as its commonly known.
The web has billions of users. And with that amount means a lot of content. I mean, A LOT. In January 2014, Ipsos MediaCT/Crowdtap concluded that of the content online, 59% was UGC.
But. I ask the question. Is this a good thing?
The Good
User’s contributing content has many positives. These range from having a more diverse range of content such as Professionally produced web series, to your amateur viral videos of charlie biting that bloody finger. Ouch Charlie.
With lots of UGC it also leads to a community feel on the web allowing comments and discussions about pretty much any topic. Need Advice? Google it! That’ll have the answers.
Most importantly. It’s also free and open to all with access. No limits as to who can and can’t post. Providing people with a voice such as those in Syria to expose the world of the crimes they faced.
The Bad
There’s also a few problems with UGC. With billions adding content, how reliable is this? Websites like wikipedia allow anyone to contribute and edit the content and change as they feel free. How reliable is this and how is it monitored?
Another way is through social media. It provides everyone with a voice. But sometimes this voice leads to Victims. Trolling over twitter and Revenge-porn is a huge problem with the web right now. It has led to governments and organisations looking at ways in which these can be prevented and protect those on the web from others.
Not the ugly. Who own’s the content?
So who even owns the content?
When you upload the album “Magaluf 2015" to Facebook, who owns it? You? Facebook?. More to the point they make a sh*t-ton of money from it!
This is a problem facing the web and in the future will be a real issue. I must point out, the answer is you but you agreed to sharing it and giving them access to have the data in the terms and conditions. Because. You did read them yeah?
-Tom.
Web Media Level 1. Ravensbourne.
WEB14105
Tom Sharman.
