Comments on: How Real Is Consumer-Generated Media?

By: David Berkowitz

David Berkowitz — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:14:29 +0000

Allen, in response to your remark, you made my day with the acknowledgement of the effectiveness of search traffic and the corresponding advertising.
However, MySpace, YouTube, and the like are becoming places where people are spending a great deal of their time and attention. In light of that, advertisers have no choice but to try and reach them there.
The effectiveness might not be as strong as search marketing, but targeting capabilities for social networks and entertainment sites can be greatly improved, especially through behavioral targeting on several levels.

By: Allen Weiss

Allen Weiss — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:17:04 +0000

Hi All,
This is an interesting discussion and one that I have been thinking about as well. As far as business models go (and someone is going to need to make money for these concepts to survive), there seems to be a big difference between the massive search engine traffic and social network traffic as a means of targeting ads.
I would be wary of using the analogy of search and social sites for making the case about advertising effectiveness. In the case of search engines, people are searching for information, often with the goal of buying something, and so ads become relevant in that context. People going to social networking sites are likely to go there with a completely different goal in mind, such as connecting to other people in a myriad of ways. These would be great for word of mouth marketing (or viral marketing, using the parlance du jour), but how effective text ad or similar types of advertising will be on these sites seems to less certain.
Thus, myspace and you tube, while massive, are likely attracting people who have completely different goals than your typical shopper. Perhaps it might be best to start to get a better understanding of the goals of these people before the ad industry starts salivating about advertising there.

By: eTechSupport

eTechSupport — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:48:40 +0000

I think there is no point who is making money, the point is what are the influencing factors working there which attract a large group of viewers and they get attached easily with particular brand.
Both media and corporate brand leaders are playing important role to exploit specific market segment by involving the consumers to these arena and trying to use them as their sales force. Nothing bad if consumers get involve and evolve making everything viral. Ok, Whatever it may be I would say its good marketing strategy though its called Consumer generated media.

By: Eric Kintz

Eric Kintz — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 05:00:06 +0000

The value of the Google deal with myspace and the NBC deal with Youtube are great indicators of the advertising potential of social networks.
Is there too much hype? Of course! But I would not ignore the phenomenom, the next Google may emerge out of it
Eric

By: B.L. Ochman

B.L. Ochman — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:13:04 +0000

Ah Lewis! The voice of a skeptic.
Participatory is the key word here.
And what makes you think that MySPace, etc. are not making any money from advertisers, and content sponsors?
Flickr, for example, has a free and a premium subscription. So do many other social media sites.
Google video and Yahoo video are supported by the ads on those sites, and the social media sites are branding sites.
Don’t kid yourself into thinking money isn’t being made in CSG.
Ignore it at your peril.

By: Lewis Green

Lewis Green — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:20:36 +0000

Is it also possible that consumer generated media is so popular because it is mostly free and it is participatory? Is it also possible that if it were not free and instead needed to make a profit from both advertising and its audience, it’s popularity might diminish? Then, CSG becomes just another enterprise competing for a share of the market.

By: eTechSupport

eTechSupport — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:42:08 +0000

The consumers are taking the authenticity easily of a particular brand and get associate themselves with that brand that is the reason consumer generated media is top of the list, anyone who has passion can appeal to consumer generated arena.