Looking Ahead: User Shared Content

My latest thinking on social is related to the evolution of how we're using it. A few years ago, social media was what some now call "static social". It was text based, updating blogs and wiki's and posting in forums.

Then we moved into the UGC phase, where people discovered the ease of creating and publishing their own content. Regular people and their cats became internet sensations. We loved it.

Today and moving forward, I think social is going to be about USC, or User Shared Content. More and more people are exposed to mass and niche sources for news and entertainment. People are spending so much time socializing and discovering news/information on the web, they don't have time to "create content" anymore and honestly, most would rather read or look at someone else's.

Instead, they can share it. And they can entertain friends and family and their new global social graph, by sharing links/pix/vids with a wider group of friends than ever before, who can like it and comment on it and share it some more.

USC a great opportunity for creatives and ad agencies, whom have the ability and resources to make some kickass content that is irresistibly shareable.