user generated reflections

i've been to a debate about user generated content. there where interesting things that i will try to summarize applying the communication course i recently have followed (i mean it), but if i don't succeed in catching your attention the whole way, please make an effort and keep on reading. thank you.

most of the time i found it sad, bacause a lot of good ideas were interrupted. there was a french guy who had a joke for everything and although the moderator (garret mitchell - BBC's digital planet) did his best, the french guy kept on distracting the focus of the discussion to himself. so, although interesting comments were made, most of the time there was no depth in it's discussion. i think that's part of the nature of a debate, sometimes, but it's still sad.

the main topic was vague. we mostly heard about "professionalism vs. amateurism", about "enabling people to generate and share content vs. enabling people to earn a living from the content they generate (including authors rights office's point of view)" and about the general difference between us and our kids that new technology is creating.

among the interesting reflections on the current way content is posted on the internet, there was a teacher concerned about how could she teach her students about content in a world of copyright, to which the Sabam guy answered with "possibilities for academic usage of protected content" that sounded to me like a bad marketing speech. someone said that author rights were actually slowing down the progress of whatever was happening but then the french guy told a joke and we forgot about it.

but the french guy was not entirely bad. he analyzed the behaviour of the internauts taking his kid (11 years old - level 65 in world of warcraft) as an example. he said that the upcoming generation can't wait anymore. everything has to happen NOW, to which someone asked about the place for the "time to reflect", to which the french guy answered that there where sometimes not even "skills to reflect", referring to pre-puber content posters that have not yet really developed a "point of view". a dutch panellist mentioned as an example that of a 11 year old kid that created an extreme islamic website (together with his uncle). kids have right now the skills to spread reflections but still haven't had time to critically reflect.

isolated thoughts were dedicated to how people select reliability of content (step one: it says WHAT I THINK - step two: it LOOKS reliable) and about a centralized warehouse concept for art works and giving capital importance to the role of the curators.

BBC's moderator took the word to answer to a question about how things are evolving inside BBC and mentioned that BBC struggles to analyze people's behaviour to produce relevant content. BUT, and this is MY opinion, i still think BBC (or studio brussel or any other mass-media representative) just decide what they will MAKE RELEVANT. they try to explore the "artic monkeys example", saying that you can actually "break through" using the internet, but sorry i still think artic monkeys became massive only after a record company bought their work and copyrighted it. you don't break through, i think, via internet. you can get discovered. and that has more to do with popularity than with quality.

there was then an interesting discussion: quality. no press was there. an amateur photographer made this remark saying that no professional photographers were present but that he would post the pics on iStock (or so). he said the quality of amateurs there was as high as that of professionals, and that they charged nothing (or almost nothing). then the dutch said something about the role of professionals. he said that professioals should coach amateurs to improve their content. then someone made an interesting point:

why not allowing professionals do their thing?

he said that one of the things that was stopping whatever was happening was not only Sabam, but the extreme focus on amateurism. he used a small city as a metaphore of the internet (it used to be the other way around - times are changing). in a city like antwerp, everyone is posting content. all of your friends are into amateur theater, minor concerts, minor exhibitions, minor poetry readings... tangible user generated content. he said that was a nice thing. but then he said that most people can actually lower their standards by only feeding their souls with amateur art. can't you feel the difference when a professional in on stage?

then one of the panellists, a CEO from the US, said that "THE INTERNET SHOULD NOT ONLY SERVE TO ALLOW EVERYONE TO POST CONTENT, BUT ALSO TO HELP US FIND THE NEXT MOZART, SINCE THIS KIND OF GENIOUS-PROFESSIONALISM IS THE ONE THAT WILL INSPIRE US AND MAKE US BETTER". i think that was one to note.

then it was 10 pm and they stopped punctually.

there were free drinks.

O.