Designing Spreadabilty

Media in the 21^st century has become as hard to define and figure out as figuring out the meaning of life. Looking for an effective way to market a product or spread a specific piece of media is becoming increasingly harder and harder.

From some of the blog posts I’ve read this morning, the idea of user generated content is one that has stuck out to me. Websites like Wikipedia and YouTube rely solely on user generated content. While YouTube is pretty open with what is posted on the site, Wikipedia is a totally different story. The general public thinks you can post whatever you want to on a Wikipedia page which, in a sense is true but, is also a very broad statement. You can post what you please on the site but, there are moderators that look over the pages and what is posted on the site to verify the validity of what is being posted. The general public looks over this thus giving Wikipedia a bad name even though that’s the best place on the internet for information. Don’t @ me.

In term of marketing and spreading the name of something, user generated content, in my opinion, is one of the most effective ways to go about it. It can create a great “stickiness” to the medium.

My favorite example is Halo 3. My favorite video game of all time, and in the conversation for the greatest videogame ever. With the introduction of the “Forge” mode, the game allowed you to create huge maps with endless possibilities and that kept the game alive way beyond the normal lifespan of a normal multiplayer game. It released in 2007 and I can remember playing custom games (user created map with a user created game mode) on it in 2012.

User generated content is the future of media and it keeps media flowing for a very long time.