Technology providers finally get the idea of user generated content
28-September-2006
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Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Home videos, beauty contests and party stunts: the future of mobiles:
I don't know whether to be sad or sorry. Having spent the last two years talking about user generated content, the big technology providers have themselves suddenly got it:
From the Guardian on-line:
"Mobile companies have been watching the rapid growth of networking and video-sharing websites such as MySpace and YouTube. They have realised that content created by users themselves might be just what they need to persuade their customers to do more with their phones than make calls and send text messages.
The mobile industry has spent billions of pounds on licences to run new services over 3G networks, and reassured nervous investors that the future of mobiles in markets where everyone already has a phone is based on customers downloading videos and accessing the internet. But the take-up of such products has been slack."
"Having invested in high-speed networks, user-generated content is an obvious next step, whether they do it themselves or work with existing online brands," says Frédéric Huet, managing director of industry specialist Greenwich Consulting UK. "It's very cheap to set up and it very quickly gets high usage.""
As the idea of user generated content mainstreams, the issue for education is how we use such content, store and share content and how we 'judge' the quality of content. This has quite profound implications, given that the traditional model was to trust in academic qualifications and names, to provide approved lists of materials or to trust in publishers kitemarks.
Technorati Tags: Open content, social software
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