I recently posted an article on my blog about definining and designing Key Performance Indicators for measuring User Generated Content, based on key objectives. You can read a response here on the WAA site from Daniel Waisberg. Thanks for the feedback Daniel.

To me, the next important piece of the puzzle in developing an approach to measuring User Generated Content is to define basic, universal categories of measurement. A taxonomy. One that defines the principal characteristics of UGC that affect an audience´s level of engagement with the content.

I've compiled a preliminary list of SEVEN factors affecting the value of User Generated Content, and I'd like to request your feedback. Do these categories reflect the most significant factors in defining the value of UGC? Can you suggest others? Would you approach it differently?

Bigger Does Not Mean Better

I think it's important to note here, that none of these categories imply better or worse. Higher volumes of content are not necessarily more valuable. Content generated by recognized experts is not necessarily more valuable. The value is in the degree of match between the User Generated Content, and the desires and expectations of the audience.

The power of the Internet is that the audience is self-selecting and fluid. As such, the standards, norms and operational models of the successful Web 2.0 site are designed to attract more appropriate users who add value to the community´s experience, and discourage inappropriate users who devalue the community's experience.

To maximize the utility of a Web 2.0 site, we seek to create a match between the content and the desires and expectations of our self-selecting audiences to deepen the level of engagement.

Seven Proposed Categories for Classifying the Factors Contributing to the Value of User Generated Content.

1. Volume/Scale

   Of course, the scale or volume of User Generated Content either positively or negatively affects its value. The ideal is matching the volume with the appetite of the audience. In terms of metrics -- proxies such as pageviews, or time on site can mislead us into valuing larger volumes of content more highly.

2. Publicness/Privacy

   The second factor I identified in measuring the value of UGC is the publicness or privateness of the content. What audience is the content intended for? Do user access privileges to the content appropriately match the intended degree of privacy or publicness of the content? In terms of metrics - are there general levels of privateness or publicness that we aspire to for our audiences for a particular site or community? Can we quantify them? A site like Facebook, for instance, tends to foster much more private UGC than other social networking sites like Linkedin.

3. Frequency

   How regularly or frequently is the content created? In the continuum, there is the single unit of content, such as a single blog post, a dialogue between poster and commentors, or a regular and continual dynamic feed. How do these different types of content affect user behaviour on the site?

4. Reach

   Frequency is closely related to reach. Reach, for me, defines the size of the audience impacted by the User Generated Content, and the degree to which they are impacted. Are others motivated to respond and create additional content, share the content within their circle of influence, or establish links to the content creator? From a WA perspective, this raises important questions around measuring connectedness within a community. What is the ideal community size, and what are its necessary audience components?

5. Purpose

   I can think of three possible purposes for User Generated Content.

   They are:

   1. Commercial - with the eventual objective of generating interest in selling a product or service;
   2. Social - intended to connect to other users for the purposes of establishing or fulfilling a relationship with them; and
   3. Transformational - containing information or ideas intended to educate, inform or influence the readership.

   Ithink that any UGC always serves one or several of these purposes simultaneously. We seek to match the objectives of the creator with the needs of the consumers. Are their more? Can anyone suggest types of User Generated Content that do not fulfil one of these three purposes?

6. Validity

   I use the term VALIDITY here for lack of a better one. I put it to the community to suggest one. By validity, I mean, the value of the content to the users who receive it based on three factors:

   1. The credibility of the content generator established through reputation, tone, qualifications, or depth of research
   2. The quality and accuracy of the content
   3. The appropriateness of the content to the audience that receives it, does it answer their needs?
7. Medium

   The choice of medium is the final category, and the most easily identified and measured, though matching the medium with audience preferences is, of course, considerably more challenging.

   Have you come across other articles that deal with the issue of factors affecting the Value of User Generated Content? Has anyone out there written about identifying and categorizing the key factors that define value? I would appreciate if you would share with me what you have read on the subject.

Comments

[Steve McInerney]

A most interesting article Luisa!

As to purpose, what about the concept of The Commons?

ie: The individuals, when combined, can produce something that they couldn't get near in a zillion years. Wikipedia being the classic and perhaps most obvious/well_known example.
The Linux kernel being another.

???

Cheers!
- Steve

[Luisa Woods]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for reading!

I quite agree. It´s staggering isn´t it? What we can accomplish when given a framework in which we can all contribute to something monumental?

But as to purpose...What is the user´s purpose in contributing to, say, Wikipedia? I propose that the individual´s purpose in making a contribution falls into one or all of the categories I laid out. Either they seek profit (wiki-ing about a product they have to offer, for instance), social connection(they feel a need to connect to and serve others, and do this by sharing their knowledge and experience), or transformational (they seek to transform the ideas, thoughts or knowledge base of others by sharing content, ideas or information).

What do you think? Is the choice to share knowledge and information a social or transformational act, or is it something distinct?

[Steve McInerney]

I think trying to reduce the full gamut of human drivers to three items is... limiting. :-)

http://freesoftware.mit.edu/papers/lakhaniwolf.pdf
Is a paper that explores this from the Free Software/Open Source side.

But plenty of other closely related areas:
Why do volunteers in the soup kitchens do what they do? The gent who sits next to me is a member of the voluntary Rural Fire Services.
You might as well ask: Why do people have hobbies? :-)

My own personal motivation is generally reduced to one thing: It's fun.

Cheers!
- Steve

[tobto]

hi Luisa -

Very like Validity-term, which in fact, it seems, Quality of UGC.

Next might be the Message - means how user generated message correlates to auditory from the point of sociology. The Purpose is pragmatics. Message is semantics.

Tone - negative, neutral, positive

Cites - adopted quotations, references to the extraneous resources

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Luisa Woods]

hey Tobto,

I think Tone is a great addition to the list...certainly not one of the easiest to measure....

i read an interesting post today that predicted the unavoidable demise of the quality of User Generated Content at the hands of exploitative commercial interests that will drive out the serious users.

http://www.joshuazeidner.com/2008/03/night-of-living-marketing-blogs-closer.html

Josh opines that effective web 2.0 analytics are critically necessary to preserve the quality of the User Generated Web.