- published: 12 Mar 2013
- views: 1488
User-generated content (UGC) covers a range of media content available in a range of modern communications technologies. It entered mainstream usage during 2005, having arisen in web publishing and new media content production circles. Its use for a wide range of applications, including problem processing, news, gossip and research, reflects the expansion of media production through new technologies that are accessible and affordable to the general public. All digital media technologies are included, such as question-answer databases, digital video, blogging, podcasting, forums, review-sites, social networking, mobile phone photography and wikis. In addition to these technologies, user-generated content may also employ a combination of open source, free software, and flexible licensing or related agreements to further reduce the barriers to collaboration, skill-building and discovery.
Sometimes UGC can constitute only a portion of a website. For example on Amazon.com the majority of content is prepared by administrators, but numerous user reviews of the products being sold are submitted by regular users of the site.