Welcome to my series of blog posts on the ABC's of Social Media, a tool that you can use to make you more "hip" in the world of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (just to name a few).  Today's letter is "U".  For "U" we have URL and upload but I'm going to go for something a bit more "social".  Today's word is UGC, short for User Generated Content.

"U" is for UGC

UGC

Pronounced: Yoo-Gee-Cee

User Generated Content, or UGC, refers to media content that is created, produced, and shared publicly by end users.

From Wikipedia:

The term 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, 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.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, has defined three central characteristics for User Generated Content:

• Publication Requirement - content that is published in some public context.
• Creative Effort - content that requires a certain amount of creative effort to create.
• Creation outside of professional routines and practices - content that does not have a institutional or commercial market context.