Death to User–Generated Content

Writing about web page http://www.powazek.com/2006/04/000576.html

Lovely little rant from Derek Powazek, from which I quote a few gems here:

Calling the beautiful, amazing, brilliant things people create online "user-generated content" is like sliding up to your lady, putting your arm around her and whispering, "Hey baby, let's have intercourse." They're words that creepy marketeers use. They imply something to be commodified, harvested, taken advantage of.

So let's not give in to the buzzphrase du jour. Let's use the real words. Those people posting to Amazon pages? They're writing reviews. Those folks on Flickr? They're making photographs. And if we must have an umbrella term to describe the whole shebang, I have a suggestion. Try this on for size: Authentic Media. Authentic media comes to you unfiltered by the global brands and conglomerates that have taken over the mainstream media. Authentic media is the raw, first-person narrative you can find on blogs and homepages. Authentic media is what happens when the mediators get out of the way and give the mic over to the people who actually have something to say.

: 06 Apr 2006 16:30 |  Tags: Blogging |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem