UGC consumers outnumber UGC creators

Online marketers might do well to find popular creators of user generated content and advertise with them. That is because, according to a recent eMarketer report, UGC consumers are rabidly consuming the content of a few popular UGC creators.

by Kristina Knight

According to the report by 2011 more than 101 million users will be consuming user generated content. Worldwide that number will reach 254 million.

However, the number of creators of user generated content will be much smaller. With more people consuming the content and fewer people creating it, the popular blogs, photo-sharing and video sites will grow by leaps and bounds. Only about 95 million creators of UGC are expected by 2011 in the US, with the number reaching 238 million worldwide.

John Horrigan of the Pew Internet & American Life Project said, "[The Web is] shifting now to user-generated content; it shows people engaging with the Internet in a number of different ways in their lives. It shows that people are pretty interested in using the technology to put something of themselves on the Internet, not just pull down information from the Internet."

eMarketer estimates that user generated content will begin paying it's own way. With popular blogs, video and photo content bringing in $4.3 billion in ad revenue in the US by 2011. This year UGC is expected to bring in about $1 billion in ad revenue.

Tags: blogs, podcasts, UGC

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Tom Sparks

Very interesting story... but are the numbers correct? "...by 2011 more than 101 million users will be consuming user generated content," "however, the number of creators of user generated content will be much smaller"..."only about 95 million creators of UGC are expected by 2011 in the US." Goodness, that 94%! Much smaller? Seems like the story actually is: By 2011 94% of us will be generating our own content for the world to see in the Net! Advertisers will then have to deal with 95 million different possibilities on how to divide up their advertising dollars.

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