Social Media = UGC +SN
So if User Generated Content is about users generating content (surprise, surprise), why is social networking so important? Social Networking is pioneered by websites like (in no special order) MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, Classmates.com, and Friends Reunited (plus the fifty others you’ll find on Wikipedia). But I have a problem with these sites. I dunno, I just don’t get it. They all seem so… well… pointless. Now, I may be 37 and a little older than your average MySpace user, but I count myself as one whose finger is firmly on the pulse, and I just don’t get it, there’s something missing. That little thing called relevance.
OK so I can put up my profile, and say what I like or don’t like, and upload a few pictures of myself drunk or making a silly face. If other people like the way I look they can add me to their ‘friends’, but there lies the problem, they’re not my friends. Most of the MySpace profiles I’ve seen are a complete mess, with random people adding comments like “hey, love your pic” and other such nonsense. Many have illegible text on confusing backgrounds. Frankly it’s a mess. I can see how they grow users fast, the entertainment value is there, if very short-lived, and I wonder how many of the tens of millions of users are actually current.
So why are large media companies buying SN companies? Well, it’s about capturing and then leveraging that young user/community base. Witness MySpace’s purchase by Murdoch’s NewsCorp for $560m in 2005, Bebo’s (recently reported) declined $550 offer from BT two months ago, and Viacoms rumoured acquisition of Classmates.com. Remember what I said about the decentralization of media in a previous blog? The big media companies need to stay ahead of the curve and own a piece of the new market, otherwise they will lose out to new upstarts and new business models. Motives for purchases may vary: some seek to acquire communities which will primarily be leveraged to sell new services to, while others are picking acquisition targets which have some synergy with their current offerings. In truth the motives will be a combination of these and other factors.
What’s missing, as I said earlier is relevance, and this is where UGC and SN get married. After all what is conversation without context, and context without someone with which to discuss it?
I believe that SN offerings need to get wise to rich UGC capabilities, and UGC offerings need to beef up their social networking aspects. How much better when I can network with people and have relevant content to discuss, and when I have relevant content and can get more involved with its creator.