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April 05, 2006
The search for meaningful context
Derek Powazek finds the term "user-generated content" distasteful.
Jeremy Zawodny chimes in, as do Scoble, Dave Sifry and a cast of others, pointing out that most people don't use the word "content" to talk about the photos, writings or videos they voluntarily create and post online. The jargon-ish "content," though, is a convenient meta descriptor for business people who swim in oceans of it.
A descriptive, bumpersticker term that carries meaningful context for everyone is almost impossible to create. "Brand equity" can be a meaningful term for some and a silly construct for others, even within the same industry.
Just to add to the mix, we decided to describe people who create blogs, podcasts, videos and other stuff that periodically reference companies or organizations in a favorable, neutral or unfavorable light as citizen marketers, a spin-off the citizen journalist meme.
Will everyone like it? Probably not.
Other blogs that reference The search for meaningful context:
» User-generated content is dead! Long live user-generated vontent! from Those Bastards!
Dear Derek Powazek, You want to kill the term user-generated content? I couldn't disagree with Derek Powazek more. Let's deconstruct it, per how it is defined in the dictionary and not spun by an A-lister who's involved in some of the compa... [Read More]
Makes sense to me. You and Jackie are so good at coming up with new buzz concepts and bringing them into the mainstream - a la "customer evangelists."
As of 4-5-06 Google pulls up 148 hits. Will be interesting to see if that changes. I'm onboard and will even bring it into the next speech I do on blogs and citizen marketing!
well these are after all business terms. what random person is going to describe what they make (on purpose or inadvertently) as CGM or CGC or citizen mktg etc? people like to make stuff. sometime it involves brands, sometimes it doesn't...just like real life! what is interesting to me is people getting interested in marketing, and figuring out how to use the system (and it's new methods) to their advantage. case in point: chevy tahoe.
Thanks, Toby!
