WINTER | TECH
A BRIEF HISTORY OF… UGC
When your audience becomes your content creator, authenticity is king,
says Terence Corness, head of client services, GoFilm
“Not another editorial about User
Generated Content”... Yes it is, but stay with
me… I’m going to take you on a brief tour through the whacky
history of User Generated Content. We’ll cast off from Paris,
where it all started, charting the course it’s taken so far…
Defining User Generated Content: A leading marketing
agency, defines UGC as “any type of content that has been
created and put out there by unpaid contributors or, using a
better term, fans. It can refer to pictures, videos, testimonials,
tweets, blog posts, and everything in between and is the act of
users promoting a brand rather than the brand itself.”
*Groan*
Journal des
Sçavans - 1665 -
Denis de Sallo
The Journal Des
Scavans was the
earliest academic
journal published
in Europe. Its
content included
obituaries of
famous men,
church history,
and legal
reports. Inviting
contributions
from learned folk
throughout the
academic world,
it eventually
evolved into more
of literary journal
than a scientific
one, but was
effectively the
birth of UGC
Journals and
newspapers -
letters to the
editor - early
1800s
From the early
1800s, ‘Outraged
of Tunbridge
Wells’ was born.
As the widespread
adoption of
periodicals and
newspapers
spread. So too did
the use of these
publications as
a public forum
for discussion.
Lost cats, job
adverts and community
announcements were all
invited from the readerships.
The Dictionary - 1857 -
Richard Chevenix Trench
(London Philological Society)
The snappily named
Richard Chevenix Trench was
tasked with the creation of
the first edition of the Oxford
English Dictionary. To do
this he enlisted the aid of
the entire English-speaking
world, inviting contributions
from far and wide. It is
unknown whether this first
edition included the words
‘frasmotic’, ‘anaspeptic’ or
‘pericombobulations’, but we
can be sure it did
include the word
‘sausage’.
Birth of Film -
1885 - Kodak
Almost 120
years before
Kim Kardashian
started breaking
the internet with
her curves, George
Eastman invented
celluloid film,
and the Kodak
camera. Little was
he to know that by
2018 we would be
taking 1.8 billion
photographs a day,
using a device that
most of us keep in
our pockets.
Hartbeat (The
Gallery) - 1984 -
Tony Hart
Softly spoken
and much-loved
English artist
Tony Hart was
a key figure in
the childhood of
anyone who grew
up in England
during the 80s.
A key part of
the programme,
as it developed,
was The Gallery,
where viewers’
arty contributions
were displayed to
the soundtrack
of peaceful and
relaxing music.
The trance-
like state that
Hartbeat induced
in children led to
it being played
at riots to pacify
angry
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