Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi Guys.

I am wondering whats the next step in online User Generated Content (UGC)networks? We have done YouTube, whch lets you share Videos, we have Photobucket and Flickr, where you can share photos, we have Digg and Stumble for sharing the online content.

And I reckon social bookmarking based search engines would be big thing soon, unless Google and company start to incorporate social bookmarking elements in their algorithm.

But whats next in terms of UGC, presuming UGC is the future of Web 2.0!

Next is Technorati fixing the horrible reliability of their servers! 

Um ... Robot Co-op is doing good things (43 things, 43 places, 43 people).
37signals always has something good going on in terms of how we collaborate and GTD.
Bebo, Yelp, 4info, my brain just exploded!

haha, i am equaly frustrated with Technorati. But, bebo, Xing, Ringo, orkut, Yelp, arnt`t they all variations of social netwrking and marketing?

I look forward to the day when TV, Mobile, Internet would all be integrated and personalised to your favourites and preferences.So I would`t have to watch Neighbours or Eastenders with my girlfriend and dn`t have to keep copying the data from mobiles everytime I change my phone. The age of all things digital!!

 

That kind of integration is what it seems Apple is aiming to do.

But as far as user-generated content sites, Video, photos, music and written content has been covered in various ways by several companies.  The way I see it, the next niche of content to go big will be user-generated comic strips!  Zingerding.com is my startup with the UGC business model.

What about if we look at it from the perspective of human senses and their relationship with informaiton.

Consider that we first had the ear, with audio files and MP3 and WAV files. Well, actually, we first had vision and text...the original web. Ears and eyes tend to be the easiest technologies. But what about touch and smell?

There have been a number of experiments with smell, like Smell-o-Vision, and it seems most people prefer not to smell the surrounding atmosphere of a movie. :-) Touch is really difficult, but it`s coming along.

Think about those virtual reality body suits. Already there`s been work done on the sexual and gaming fronts. Think about not only a virtual helmet, but also a connected body suit. Then think about what it would be like playing chess online, where you could actually feel as if you were picking up a piece and moving it. Or shopping, where you could feel the texture of material.

To predict what`s next, I think we have to examine physical immersion in reality, then translate it to phsyical immersion in the virtual reality of computers.

I can`t remember the movie, but it involved a way to capture total sensory response to an experience. It was done on a memory cube, with some sort of connection device. So you could buy a memory cube of sailing or gliding, and feel the other person`s experience directly. I think we`re moving toward that kind of thing.

Look at karaoke and dating sites. For the short-term, I`d imagine we`ll see interactive user-generated content. Instead of passive uploads of videos, there would be some way to join into group projects. They could be music, speech, or video maybe.

Bottom line is that entertainment, games, and sex are driving the leading-edge implementation of technology, for the most part. As such, I think we`ll likely see a site where people can "blog" live, sort of like taking a soap box and standing on it to rant about a topic. Web visitors will gather around, using something like Webcam, and there`ll be direct, interactive feedback. (Maybe a virtual pie in the face?) :-)

Steve, just been to your Zingerding, amazing work and its a cool idea! Only thing that puts me off is when I like a site and would like to explore more I dn`t want to be forced into Sign-Up just for a demo. So if you could place a small interactive Demo for anyone to have a feel of the site. I dunno just a thought!

Craig, your last paragraph relates to exactly what I said, integrate all the technologies we mostly use, namely TV, Mobile and Internet, and create a continous live interaction with each other through, texts, videos(camera phones etc.), of course sound. One can also find ways of including limited sensory interaction as well, for example if you and me use a particular configured device, I could almost see your 3d image wherever I want, projected by the integration of all these technologies. Sci-Fi stuff people would say!

 

Hersh,

Zingerding is not actually live yet.  The site you see IS the demo explaining what is coming.  We`re currently building the site.

And to relate to the discussion, I would add that advancing technology itself is great but I also think it will be used for more specific niches, not just the common ones like video or music.  The reason I brought up Zingerding (besides a little self promo) is that it`s an example of a niche, comic strips, taking advantage of technology.

Who knows what other kinds of media or industries will make their way over the net/digital devices.  And who knows what new kinds of ways this will come about.  Five years ago, the public knew little of blogs and now they are a mainstream content format.  What else?

Smell-o-blogging?  :)

Smell-o-Blogs....! LOL!! 

Another way to think about all this is to take what we have, then make it more intense...bigger. Remember bulletin boards, back in the days of CompuServe? We still have them, but now they`re forums. We had PhotoBucket for still images, now we have YouTube for moving images and sound.

To follow Steve`s line of thought, as new technology enters the market, people will go back to what already works and apply that technology to make it "bigger." Hersh mentions mobile phones, and look at the impact of photo or video capture and text messaging.

It comes down to people wanting to communicate, and to make their communication as closely similar as if they were standing next to the person or people they`re speaking to.

Another "next thing" is definitely going to be interactive education, lectures, and seminars, when the Internet-2 comes online. It`s there already in some places, and demonstrates the viability. We`re on the way to personal TV stations, the same as we have personal radion stations with Internet radio.

Remember "Wayne`s World?" I`d expect to see something like that replace YouTube.

I happen to think that the technology on the internet will be going towards 3D, virtual worlds and social networks using this technolgy to grow. A free tool, Metaplace has launched that allows anyone to create a 3D online world for a PC or mobile phone without any programming experience. It is quite possible that Metaplace might be the fuse that is responsible for the explosion of virtual social networking platforms. I predict that in order for companies to stay competitive in the near future, their websites will need to incorporate at least some degree of interaction in the 3rd Dimension as well as incorporating a social networking component. I feel that fields including retail, client services, B2B and advertising would all be using some form of virtual platform to compete in the future. An article in NY Times discusses some of the recently launched Mash-ups systems that are poised to hit the mainstream. Yahoo, I.B.M., Microsoft and others are creating systems to let ordinary people (non-programmers) create useful computer applications by combining, or “mashing up,” different online information sources.I believe that these mash-up systems will speed up the convergence of virtual world platforms and social networking platforms. So 3D is the next Big Thing IMO.

Erin

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Podcasting made a great impact on the individual being able to have their own "radio show".  There are video podcasts but they haven`t picked up a lot of steam yet.  Heck, regular audio podcasts are still picking up steam.

If YouTube or a similar site/company had a better way for people to watch personal video broadcasts in the form of regular shows, then yes, there will be plenty of `Wayne`s World` shows out there!