I hate the term “User Generated Content” because to me it has come to imply an exploitive entrepreneurial mindset. Namely, profiting from your “users” work rather than empowering and enabling them. The term is valid and probably shouldn’t carry that connotation (Wikipedia and YouTube are ineed UGC sites) – but I still don’t like it. “Building community” is another useless phrase for me. These days, I’m all about finding communities to serve. With those caveats, here are some tips (from the CEO of Judy’s Book) on what types of interests or vertical markets can make for good Web audiences:
I have a friend who is starting a UGC / social network site in the health space and he asked me to send him an email with my lessons learned from Judy’s Book. I’ll post it here for you all to read and comment on. Keith, Here’s my advice… 1) Focus, focus, focus Focus the network on a specific category. Health is way too broad. At Judy’s Book, I wish we had just focused on restaurants. And for that matter, we should have started with Seattle restaurants. Restaurants as a category are the area where there is the intersection of consumer passion, review writing, and daily activity.
A Sack of Seattle: Tip 1 for creating a user generated content site