Content Management Matters ™

The issue of user-generated content has been subject to scrutiny and debate among online news media, many of whom have questioned its place in online journalism.

We reported that A Moderated Approach to User Generated Content seemed to produce more accurate and censored content than opponents would lead you to believe. Then, we reported on the status of online comments as used by online newspapers and as to whether or not comments enhance the quality of online journalism.

Now, we bring the next phase in the saga of online comments: the difficulty in maintenance and moderation.

The Social Media industry seems to get just a little bit bigger every hour and it's amazing how many different vendors can come on the scene and offer products and solutions that can help us design and build communities of one sort or another.

As an enterprise though, you need to be sure you are working with the right solution provider. Someone who is not only selling you a service, but helping you truly understand why and how to implement it. This is where you see Awareness -- an on-demand social media platform for Web 2.0 communities provider -- emerge as a front-runner. They have the right technology platform and what appears to be a wealth of knowledge and understanding to implement your community(s) the right way.

Organizations today understand that a key focus of their marketing activities must be in the social media arena. If they are really smart, they also recognize that user participation is key to successful social media marketing. And what do users like to contribute? Text, video, audio and all the rating, tagging and commenting that goes along with it.

Who better to help these organizations support their social media marketing activities than SaaS User Participation Platform provider Reality Digital? This is a company that not only has the technical experience to create a social media platform with a strong Digital Asset Management backbone, but also has the marketing savvy to understand the key to social media marketing is a combination of user generated and professionally published content.

Is user-generated content all that it is cracked up to be?

Sure, some organizations have been very quick to exploit its appeal in an effort to adapt to the newest and hippest Web technology trends. While others (newspapers, for instance) linger, hesitant and skeptical of the benefit and subsequent outcome that adding wikis, blogs and other Web 2.0 prospects, will bring.

For some time now, the jury has been vague is determining the impact -- good or bad -- that user-generated content (UGC) has had on social media and even more importantly, if it's lived up to the hype of being the great equalizer, democracy-laden technology of the Web.

Ever since the birth of reality television and the subsequent rise of Web 2.0 technologies, user-generated content has become more popular. So popular in fact, that the news is now relying on it.

CNN announced that its ever-popular iReport is expanding itself in hopes of becoming the YouTube of cable news. While iReport has been around since 2006 and has received more than 100,000 news-related photo and video submissions, CNN rarely uses more than 10 percent of the content in its newscasts. That is of course because they've needed to check each story out for accuracy and other pesky newsy type information.

But no more...

When I think of Facebook, I think of the telephone. Stay with me. Not only do they both provide means for networking and communication, their development was also subject to conspiracy. You see, back in the day, many laid claim to status of its inventor. Much like the Harvard graduates, Divy Narendra and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who claim that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea. Now they know how Antonio Meucci felt.