From blogs to podcasting, SMS voting on live TV to newspaper website polls, in the past few years, consumers have been given increasingly sophisticated opportunities to become "prosumers" (a combination of the words producer and consumer). No longer exclusively passive consumers of professionally-generated media, users are generating - and sharing - their own views and content on a scale that should have network providers jumping for joy.
Some, such as 3 in the UK, are actively encouraging subscribers to create and share their own content. 3 rewards budding directors with cash credits per uploaded video clip that other users download via the company's SeeMee TV service.
And in a world-first late last year, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) ran an interactive mobile TV trial with Ericsson and found that interactivity doubled the amount of time users spent watching mobile TV - spelling revenue for the network provider. The results also demonstrated that this new way of using mobile TV is an attractive option for both phone users and broadcasters.
Others are realizing the potential of "slivercasting," (also referred to as "the long tail"), which uses IP TV to target niche audiences - communities with a common interest or culture. These are small but very dedicated audiences - "slivers" of a much bigger collective pie that represents a significant market segment.
Niclas Medman, strategic marketing manager of Media Solutions at Ericsson, says: "For network providers and operators hoping to catch the wave of the 'prosumer' trend in all its forms, one of the challenges is to support user-generated and shared content services via both the mobile and fixed networks, something that Ericsson can assist with.
"There is a strong consumer interest in multimedia services such as interactive TV over mobile networks," Medman says. "User benefits, such as interactivity and personalization, also benefit both the media companies and operators. Media companies can, for example, conduct more successful targeting and get better feedback on who they actually reach, whereas operators can differentiate their service offering with features that users really appreciate."
There is no doubt that user-generated content represents a major new growth market. Networked media is the vehicle that will help operators deliver the best end-user experience and thus become the provider of choice to the fast-growing ranks of people wanting to share their lives and participate more fully within their communities.
