Market place is a value exchange portal. Unless web 2.0 sites can generate ugc of value, they cannot sell their sites (read: service commission.) Ad revenue should be seen as a secondary source of revenue.

the advertising model for web 2.0 start ups was always hype to get investors money.

that’s what we’ve done/doing… a social network for users to by and sell between each other; the key is to reward the buys by involving them into the business model; when you buy something from the web, you get to give the sales commission to a friend/ or yourself if you register twice; if you use our p2p module, you make money redistributing it. the artist/publisher still makes the royalty.

There does seem to be a flight to safety away from UGC towards the majors, as the majors carry with them metrics that give advertisers the confidence to spend, and at the same time the mayors get to dip their feet in two ponds, traditional media and digital media while monetising in both.

I’m counting on UGC to win through in the end, once the current state of flux has been negotiated.

Thanks ( ) for listening.

Etsy, Spreadshirt and Ponoko are another examples where much was invested in understanding the creator community and relying on an audience that is similar or one and the same as the creators.

Other UGC, open source and collaborative projects, such as Wikipedia and Blender do not measure success in the money they make, but rather in the benefit they bestow on the community.

more about UGC:
http://bit.ly/ugc

The term UGC is too broad and talented people, no mater how they define themselves as Pro or Amateur, can make money producing content.

I believe a “marketplace” environment for digital content is the clear solution. In a Marketplace, money is the filter not some editor “deciding what is good and bad” content. The money will flow to quality talent that meets the needs of the user.
To make this work, the user needs to know that they can request or choose from the best available content and content producers need to know that they will get paid for their efforts.

In this environment, the term UGC does not matter. If there is enough money “on the table” to entice a producer, any producer, to take a chance and create the content then they will make the requested content.

The revenue model simply becomes, as in any marketplace, the fees associated with hosting and managing the marketplace.

Error #2044: Unhandled NetStatusEvent:. level=error, code=SharedObject.Flush.Failed

However, there is obvious potential for generating knowledge from the distillation of UGC. Twitter’s search capabilities are the best example.

What FB and Google need to realize with respect to this value is that size is not that important. Twitter at its current size, or even 1/2 its size is a representative sample for a UGC search function to adequately represent “what’s current” in the internet user population.