The production of content by the general public rather than by paid professionals and experts in the field. Also called "peer production," and mostly available on the Web via blogs and wikis, user-generated content refers to material such as the daily news, encyclopedias and other references, movie and product reviews as well as articles on any subject, all of which have been traditionally written by editors, journalists and academics.
The User Rules! The Amateur Rules!
As brought out in Andrew Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur," when everyday users are allowed to report the news under pseudonyms or anonymously and are not held accountable for anything they say, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell truth from fiction. Professional journalists and editors, even those with immense fame, can be criticized and fired for false reporting. However, the contributing user can write anything and never be held responsible. In addition, anyone and everyone can post something online, leading to an unprecedented information overload in today's world that makes it more difficult than ever to decipher fact from fiction. See blog, wiki, Wikipedia, Web 2.0, YouTube and crowdsourcing.
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