User Generated Video is Dead?
December 6th, 2007
WellcomeMat put out an interesting blog post recently titled, “The Beginning of the End for User Generated Video?” In it, they basically state that the reluctance of advertisers to plop down money in UGC will kill the space, and that moves by ManiaTV.com and recently Brightcove.tv are indicators of what is to come.
This is certainly not a bad hypothesis to make. The industry does need ad dollars to survive. However, it appears to us that a growing number of independent content creators are getting better and better at producing quality content, and this trend will continue as better tools become accessible for less cash and the availability of how-to information make it easier to hone one’s film-making skills. There are valuable brands being created as episodic/serial content that are in fact user generated videos. And more are on the way.
In addition, the lack of advertising dollars isn’t just about brand risk – being paired next to unfavorable content. It’s also about a perception that there aren’t enough video impressions to make the spend. This could change, though, if growth in viewing habits continue, if more data comes in on the value of an online video impression vs. impressions in other media, or if advertisers realize the viewership of a single piece of content is far greater than what is seen on one video site. Or maybe advertisers won’t even have to realize these things… maybe they’ll simply need to place bets in online video because the majority viewers they are targeting are found getting video content online.
Sphere: Related Content
Entry Filed under: New Media/Old Media, Video Advertising, Video Viewership
3 Comments Add your own
1. Anthony | December 6th, 2007 at 11:19 am
We at the San Francisco Zoo believe there is a very bright future for ugc, and have watched
our own production ( youtube.com/sfzoo ) evolve and become more and more popular.
What do we call the content that is higher quality than ugc, but not quite professional?
2. admin | December 6th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
That’s exactly it – we would call that UGC. Quality has only been a benchmark and delineation is less clear these days because good tools are affordable for most everyone. Basically, if you are a creator of content without any economic licensing agreement or without any previous history of creating professional content, we would define that as UGC. Because without video sharing capabilities of the internet, you would have had a much more difficult time developing a channel for videos.
Your point is noted, though – the lines are blurring as more people with a history of creating professional content are putting videos online that could qualify as UGC or professional content.
I went to wikipedia to see what UGC says about UGC. “It reflects the expansion of media production through new technologies that are accessible and affordable to the general public.”
So that seems to point to “general public,” however that can be loosely defined.
Interestingly, at the bottom of the article is a section that states the following:
“The term ‘user generated content’ has received some criticism. Some commentators assert that the term ‘user’ implies an illusory or unproductive distinction between different kinds of ‘publishers,’ with the term ‘users’ exclusively used to characterize publishers who operate on a much smaller scale than traditional mass-media outlets.[2] Such classification is said to perpetuate a distinction that some argue is diminishing because of the prevalence and affordability of the means of production and publication.”
3. TubeMogul Blog » Kl&hellip | February 28th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
[...] follow the audience and content. We’ve all been writing about it for some time – our post is here. Once again, we’re left to speculate about how much and how [...]
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