When the user-generated content (UGC) craze started in 2005 with the meteoric rise of Youtube videos, no one knew if it would last. Yet, today the quality and quantity of UGC in online publications are growing more rapidly than ever.
According to a 2015 report by Mary Meeker, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, content on the web is increasingly dominated by UGC. This is evidenced by the fact that Pinterest pin creation is up 75 per cent, Twitch video broadcasts are up 83 per cent, Wattpad stories are up 140 per cent and Airbnb reviews are up 140 per cent year-over-year.
A number of factors are colliding to drive this massive growth in UGC, starting with a rich set of new consumer-friendly content creation tools. These include products and applications like GoPro and Hyperlapse, which allow consumers to create visceral video experiences that rival those created by professionals. Add to that near ubiquitous access to smartphones with high quality cameras, the huge increase in mobile broadband speeds and effortless options for delivering images and videos from laptops or smartphones to highly visible websites. As a result, this year more UGC will be created, distributed and shared across social media platforms than content created by professionals.
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