MappingTheWeb //

Any website or service that is dependent upon its users for survival can be categorized as a ’social media’ player. User-generated content (UGC) has formed the basis for numerous successful for start-ups. Without users who submit content, these sites are essentially worthless. What’s Flickr without photos? What’s YouTube without videos?

Two of the best examples are Wikipedia and Craigslist - undoubtedly the web’s two most famous .org’s. Who submits the content? Who does all the work? The users. Sure, the company created the system that facilitates the processes, but this is only a tiny portion of the overall effort. Such a scenario is the reason why small operations can scale on a low budget. Once again though, if users stop contributing, the service is useless. Put in a different context, the company isn’t the content provider, but rather the distribution mechanism. This is the basis for social media.

What if everyone stopped submitting news headlines and interesting articles? We’d have no more Digg. What if everyone stopped uploading videos? We’d have no more YouTube. Worse yet, what if everyone stopped blogging? We’d be stuck with whatever content that traditional media subjects to us. What a pity that would be.

In a future post, we will explore how social media can backfire and work in a counter-productive fashion, potentially destroying the company altogether.