Californians say "UGC," New Yorkers say "CGM"

After a full day at the MIXX advertising event in New York City, Andrew Chen of the Futuristic Play blog comes to the realization that there's still a huge cultural gap between the East Coast and West Coast when it comes to thinking about Web 2.0. For one, "it actually took a full 3 hours for someone to finally mention Facebook" at the MIXX event in New York. Also, while East Coast executives and West Coast executives agree that "video is hot," they have a completely different view on what that video should look like: "[New Yorkers] want well-polished content to place their media next to, where they can be sure that it won't harm the brand."

Here's the biggest difference, though: In San Francisco, they refer to "user-generated content" (UGC); in New York, however, they refer to "consumer-generated media" (CGM):

"This one was sort of unexpected - people don't call things User Generated Content (aka UGC), they call it Consumer Generated Media (CGM). In fact, there's a bunch of people whose titles have CGM in them. Weird!

I think ultimately, it has to do with the fact that the tech entrepreneur crowd in SF is mostly focused on creation of new inventory - they need to convince USERS to come to their site and generate content, whereas for people who are typically on the advertising site, they see these people are CONSUMERS. Either way, it's an interesting and subtle distinction that shows the differences in perspective."

The difference is a big one for any business hoping to expand its Web presence: Do you think of your customers as "consumers" or as "users"?

[video: "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"]

Comments

[Bill Ross]

>> The difference is a big one... Do you think of your customers as "consumers" or as "users"?

Thought this was a great point; so I quoted it as the basis of a post in our own culture-of-innovation blog, The Heart of Innovation, titling the post "How do you view your customers?"

http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2007/10/how_do_you_thin.shtml

Summary: who wants to be thought of, much less addressed, as a "consumer"? I wrote, "Seeing people just as consumers is to think of them in a passive role; as mouths to be stuffed, you might say. 'Users' casts them in an active role: mouths that also have something to say, to contribute. As a consummate user myself, I'm far more receptive to a company that addresses me as a person with something to offer, rather than as a receptacle they wish to pour products into."

Loved the link to the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers vid, too. Nice touch. (It Inevitably reminded me of architect Frank Gehry's "Dancing Building" in Prague, which has been nicknamed "Fred & Ginger"-- one look will show you why.)
http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2007/07/frank_gehrys_de.shtml

(btw, dropped a note to Andrew Chen, too, to tell-and-link him that I found his words here.)

Thanks for picking this up,
Bill Ross
"The Heart of Innovation"