UGC Predictable trends & Suprises

The world of User Generated Content (UGC) is growing and this week's readings discuss some predictable trends and suprises.

Back in November 2006 Gemma Simpson pointed out that YouTube was the fastest growing website. This is not a suprise becuase YouTube is a fun wesite to see entertining videos and it illustrates the entertainment value of UGC.

Current TV, a venture led by Al Gore is not that popular however, this is also quite predictable. Current TV is essentially a television version of YouTube with random UGC videos playing one after another. The reason it is not successful is that the videos are not easily searched or shared, which are two things that help make YouTube successful, so I'd rather see Gore spending his time build clean energy windmills.

A suprising fact was the credibility that other place in UGC. I was suprised to find that 62 percent of IT professionals place more value on UGC than traditional sources. I find this suprisong because we do not know the credibility or the motives of the UGC poster. For example, what if my girlfirend works for HP and I try to gain points with her by making up a story about by Dell laptop bursting into flames and post it as UGC on a computer review site.

I do not disbelieve every UGC posting but never just accept it as pure fact either. So is the best way to determine the credibility of UGC is to see other people sharing similar info? If so, what is to prevent one guy from pretending to be others?

Politics and Social Networking's Minefield

While social networking can be a benefit to today's politicians, such as the example of voters using it to organize grassroots level support for Barack Obama, for most established politicians it is more of a minefield.

It is a minefield because politicians used to be able to control their message and image through the media and individual voters really did not have a forum to voice conflicting opinions. Now with social networking, the individual voter has a forum and while social networking can be used to support candidates or share positive information about them, it is negative information and criticism that will spread faster through the Internet. One piece of bad information spread through social networking can blow up and ruin a candidate's campaign, therefore it's a minefield.

An example of negative imagery spreading through social networking is a YouTube video of John Edwards getting ready for a debate. While this is not something that will ruin his campaign, it is certainly negative imagery that he would prefer not be spread through social networking. Edwards' communications manager comments that once a negative message is out there a politician and his advisors need to decide whether to try to counteract it or simply ignore it, which is often a difficult decision.

How much of an impact will social networking have on the 2008 Presidential Race?

Resumes and networking

Based on this week's readings, it looks like resumes and networking are still the keys to getting a good job. I disagree with Darowski's claim that the blog is the new resume. I think that a personal blog can supplement a resume, but not replace it. The article by Hansen descirbes how recruiters use social networking liked LinkedIn to recruit candidates from the passive job market. I can really see that this is a good use of social networking as a person will be typically be less engaged in face-to-face networking when they are in the passive job market compared to when they are actually actively looking for a job. If one does get contacted for a job through LinkedIn, their resume will be important in getting their job. So a job searcher should still focus more on their resume and networking than blogging