A few people emailed and commented on my thoughts on Barry Diller’s statement on User Generated Content. I certainly do not want to be known as the anti-UGC content guy, especially since, for the sake of disclosure, I have been getting a lot of parties contact me about helping them position, leverage and monetize UGC to advertisers etc.
So in the event one of these discussions materializes, I’d like to be very clear about one thing: I am all for UGC “in all shapes, forms and fashion,” after all, the Web is the greatest canvas of UGC, it just happens that:
- some users take a professional approach to it (three guys in a basement who incorporate, set up an online magazine startup and take on offline magazines), in this case, the “users” are from freelancers around the world… and not the literati who get paid $2,500 for deep thoughts on triple martini lunches in Manhattan…;
- others actually editorialize it (a link dump, for example, where a webmaster actually picks and chooses what to program),
- while some adopt a laissez faire approach (YouTube, basically).
But the point is, I am not anti-UGC. One area is comments. That is why we are testing spam comment tools to automate comments on this blog (and our blog/news network in general) and why we “might even, maybe, eventually” provide an upload tool on WatchMojo.com. It’s just a matter of not taking a me-too approach. Mainly, it’s a strategic decision: if we go with UGC on WatchMojo.com, we’d be the smallest UGC video player; by remaining a producer of original video content, we are one (if not the biggest) online-only producer of video content. I would love to know of other sites who have 4,000 original videos on such a wide array of topics. If I told you how many videos I am gunning to have by end of 2007, you would think I was delusional, but mark my words, now that I have gotten rid of some distractions, it’s on.
My point in my thoughts to Mr. Diller’s comments had to do with advertisers and making money. As you see we do not run pre-rolls etc. on WatchMojo.com, so I am certainly not a “money first, experience second” kind of executive at all.
I just think that like everything else, the 2006 obsession with UGC is starting to wane because
a) the people doing the uploading wake up and one day and ask what YouTube’s $1.6B sale did for them; and
b) the backers of such sites - VCs mainly - realize that successful exits will probably not materialize in the wake of the YouTube/Google deal, so they now are scratching their heads looking for ways to make money… that is why, frankly, the same people who asked me: “Ash why do you produce video yourself, why not go UGC route” a few months ago today call me back saying: “can we talk? we love what you are doing…”
[Like I say, don’t believe to your biggest critics or supporters; listen, learn, improve, but don’t drink the coolaid on either side of the spectrum.]
But why do you think that is? Everyone drank the UGC coolaid real hard throughout 2006, and now they wake up with a hangover knowing that long term, advertisers market their products and services alongside publishers they trust, and UGC is simply no way of doing that; that does not mean, however, that UGC has no place on a site. Au contraire! And over the next few weeks and months you will see our suggestion for how the two can coexist and balance on a site… I am not set on doing that, but we have people all around the world approaching me and saying they want to be involved, so I am working on an action plan to do that, in the event we choose to do it. If you are one such person, email me at ash@mojosupreme.com.
In fact, I consulted one media company last year on how to mesh their UGC with their own content and let me say that this is a model that I envision media companies embracing in the upcoming years. I do not think what I said was all that new, but in 2006, when everyone was jumping up and down about “tripping grandmothers,” some of the people in the room thought I was too old-school to suggest that advertisers would in the long term balk at UGC-only… anyway, I really should shut up now, but I have been told that I have a big mouth (haha).
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