Design Ontap

I believe that the internet parallels other media such as Television; with only a difference of age and maturity. The internet is a relatively new media, with the world wide web celebrating it's 15th birthday last week, whereas widespread television media was introduced during the 1950's.

Between the 1950's and 1970's Television was an entirely 1-way form of media, with broadcasters sending content, and audience?s tuning in as and when they wish.
Then, in the 1970's and 1980's television shows such as Blue Peter rocketed to the top of the ratings, because of one factor: Audience participation.
Blue Peter introduced the Blue Peter badge, and the ability to write-in and have your letter read out over the television.
Interactivity was changing the television ratings, and those that got on-board were benefiting from these better ratings.

The same can be said of the internet.
The first sites to exist were mainly educational and information. 1-way sources of information. Even when businesses in the early 1990's decided to own their own presence on the internet, their sites were informational and very 'this is who we are'.
These sites served their purpose, but eventually users wanted a ?reason? to be on the internet.

I believe users require 3 things from the internet:

• Information

  Where is ?. Who was ? How do I ?.. These are all types of information users want to get from the internet.
  The internet lends itself to information storage and distribution so well due to the speed of the internet. It's usually much quicker to find information using the internet than it is using an encyclopaedia, or asking your friends.
  To show how this parallels with television, the first mainstream television broadcast in the United Kingdom was the BBC News, a purely 1-way informational programme.

• Communication

  We communicate every day with people. The internet is a means of communicating to people anywhere in the world, at any time. Email was the first, and still is one of the most popular forms of internet communication.

  In television: The most popular programme throughout the 1980's was Blue Peter. Each week Blue Peter read out letters from viewers, communicating their opinions and ideas.

• Participation

  This is the most important and modern of all of the needs.
  Throughout the 90's and post-2000, television experienced a revolution, with the introduction of text messages. SMS allowed audiences to text messages to television programmes, controlling the content of them. For example, texting favourite song numbers to music video channels, text-voting people out of 'Big Brother', voting on 'X-Factor'...
  The aim of participation is to hand control over to someone.
  Passive activities are never as engaging as active activities, hence the name.
  If a user has some control, a sense of belonging, and the ability to contribute to something, they are far more likely to stay attached to it.

  Sites that allow participation will always be more popular than those sites with 1-way informational content.

What's the Advantages?

User-contributed content has huge advantages over a standard linear form of content.

• Less Work

  The more 'stuff' users contribute to the website, the less we, the owners have to.
  One of the best examples of this has to be 'Wikipedia'.
  'Wikipedia' is the daddy when it comes to user-contributed content. The entire site is editable by users. It's currently the world's most comprehensive encyclopaedia, because it has millions of users adding to it and making changes to it.
  But, one thing you will notice about 'Wikipedia' is the lack of 'content' created by the staff. Staff at wikimedia (who own wikipedia), don't sit at their computers all day long adding encyclopaedia entries, because they have users to do that for them!
  Instead, wikimedia spend their time ensuring users are able to contribute, moderate content, and promote their site.

• Knowledge of the masses

  It's an undeniable fact, that there is more knowledge outside of your office than there is inside of your office. When a large number of people have the ability to create content, you have access to a larger base of knowledge.
  Therefore, you can publish content that you wouldn't normally know a great deal about, by using the knowledge of this wider audience.

• Relevance

  People like what they like, not what you tell them they like.
  Sometimes we all wish we could tell users what they should like, but we?re all individuals, and it just isn't going to happen. Failing dictatorships speak volumes about that very fact.

  Users will only create content that is relevant to them, and they're interested in.
  Because the users are adding this relevant and interesting content, you don't need to spend time trying to understand how your site can be more relevant and interesting to your target audience... It just is.

  Relevance and interests change faster than we can keep track of. But if users are contributing content, your site will automatically be aware of these changes, and will adapt to them accordingly

• Pride in Ownership

  Have you ever made something, or written something?
  Most of the time, you're proud about what you've achieved, and what's the first thing you want to do when you're proud of something? - Tell other people about it.
  Users will tell their friends about their contributions to a site out of instinct through their pride in ownership.

It's all well and good me telling you how user-contributed content is the way forward, and how much more popular it will make your site? but where's the proof?

Let's look at encyclopaedia.
encyclopedia.com is a standard online encyclopaedia, allowing user to search for information and display it in a traditional 1-way method of communication.
Then there's wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia created and updated by millions of 'average-joe' users around the world.

Notice anything interesting about the traffic trends?
Since its launch, wikipedia has benefited from user-contributed content, and therefore pride-of-ownership referrals. Wikipedia has continued to gain popularity due to the amount of control users have over it.

How does this apply to me?

You may be thinking:

Well, I have a business website, I can't let users add pages about my site! They don't know enough about it!

This is often true, no-one knows your business as well as you do, but no-one knows your potential business as well as your market.
Little and often is the main key, give users small areas or participation, such as news comments, polls, or contact forms, and add participation as your site's purpose and functionality expands.

With the technology available through the internet, businesses should be eager to embrace participation as a method of better engaging with their market.