User-generated content (UGC) has been a staple of the peer-to-peer experience since the dawn of the digital revolution. The concept is simple: user-generated content includes any site where the user can write and/or publish content.  That content can be video content, blog posts, etc.

Traditional content includes pages run by local and national media, businesses, and any website where the content was professionally written, edited and published.

What are some of the Positives and what are some of the Negatives of User-generated Content?

Positives of User-generated content:

• Voice: User-generated content has given people around the world a voice, whereas traditional content in too many cases is controlled by news media or governments.
• Upcoming: The current teenage generation grew up with the Internet. (According to a Pew study, 94% of American teenagers use the Internet.) As a result, teens are watching less TV (traditional content). UGC seems to be the way to go if trying to hook the future generation.
• Simpler: Content is written for you rather than by you so it can be argued that UGC is easier from a site owner’s perspective.
• Self-policing: Not only is it possible to not have to write much content, there are ways to get the community to actually police themselves. Using moderators can help reduce and even eliminate abuse.

Sounds good, so why isn’t every website using user-generated content? Here are some reasons:

Negatives of User-generated content:

• Credibility: Ask a simple question on an advice site and you’ll be amazed at the myriad of different answers you’ll receive. Who are these people answering your question and what makes them experts? It’s impossible to determine how much wrong (or even dangerous) information is being disseminating through their blogging and incorrect advice?
• Bias: Unless the site is a specifically-stated as a political website, the bias of the poster isn’t always clear. The reader must determine if there is bias or not. And many visitors to your website may not be capable of making this determination.
• Moderation: Unless using self-policing options, there is an issue of moderating UGC sites. A great deal of work could be involved in making sure illegal or abusive activity isn’t published on your site. And is that effort worth it?
• Ownership: With traditional content, ownership is pretty easy to determine. But who owns the content on user-generated sites? The host? The user who wrote it? Both? Intellectual property laws regarding the Internet have come a long way but there are still many areas of gray.
• Additional Risks: Since much of UGC emanates from largely unknown sources and can vary greatly in quality, advertisers who buy on user-generated pages can’t be guaranteed their brand will appear next to content with which they want to be associated. For example, a family-film advertiser doesn’t want to risk having its G-rated movie trailer appear beside a poorly shot video of a college kids going wild on a beach in Cancun.

Smartphones and Apps

Smartphones will continue to proliferate in 2010, despite the uncertain economy. Industry predictions are that about 250 million smartphones will be sold globally this year, up from an estimated 190 million in 2009.

For small businesses, the real value of a smartphone, aside from e-mail, Web browsing and phone functions, is in the applications, or apps. In 2010, more apps will help you stay connected to your company’s data or be productive while on the road.

For example, there are online file storage, sharing and synchronization service that offer a free iPhone apps that lets you view files stored in your own account and e-mail them to others – invaluable when you’re away from the office without a laptop and need to e-mail a file to someone. Expect to see more smartphone apps this year, giving you more ways to access company data from anywhere.

Smartbooks

A brand-new product category, smartbooks fall somewhere between a smartphone and a netbook. Designed to be an always-on Internet device, as opposed to a fully functional laptop or netbook, a smartbook is super thin, light, and it has a physical keyboard and a color screen that ranges between five and10 inches. A smartbook has a processor that’s often used in smartphones (but it’s more powerful), a battery that lasts all day and 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Smartbooks might make sense for people who prefer a keyboard they can actually type on and who primarily use computing apps instead of standard office productivity software. Given that many netbooks currently cost less but do more, smartbooks may not be a practical choice for most small businesses for a while.

Engaging with Customers

The smartphone’s continual rise will give you more opportunities in 2010 to interact with customers when they’re mobile. And more customers will use smartphones to search for you.

Mobile Web use jumped 34 percent from July 2008 to July 2009, according to the Nielsen Company. This means a growing number of your potential customers might be searching for you on their smartphones.

But there’s a potential problem. While smartphones have browsers that can display most Web content, not all of those pages are optimized for the smartphone’s small screens, making them difficult to view and navigate on a handheld.

Also, some mobile browsers can’t currently display Flash-based content. If your landing page is primarily a Flash animation, a smartphone user isn’t likely to see it. In that case, consider creating a separate mobile-optimized site.

Bar Codes

As smartphone cameras gain megapixels, they’re better able to accurately scan bar codes. For businesses with a brick-and-mortar presence, such as retailers, restaurants and bars, this capability can present new ways to provide information, discount coupons and more to potential customers while they’re at your location.

Quick Response (QR) codes, two-dimensional bar codes that can store addresses, URLs and other information, have been popular in Japan and Europe are now getting a push in the U.S.

Once you download a QR reader app (many are free) to your smartphone, customers can take a picture with their smartphone of a QR code they see at a business, in a magazine, or on a sign. The smartphone QR reader app will then automatically direct them to a mobile Web page and display a coupon or other information. For example, a retailer could serve up a list of items in the store that are on sale only to those who access the QR code.

Creating a QR code is free and extremely simple. But awareness of QR codes is still fairly new. So if you post them at your location, expect to do some customer education.

Location-aware Apps

With GPS becoming a standard feature on smartphones, more apps and mobile sites are serving up location-aware content. For example, the mobile GreenLocals app combines two of the hottest trends in business – green and local search.

If you’re visiting the Park City, Utah area and are looking for a coffee house that is committed to green practices, sustainability and Fair Trade, you’d just do a search on “Coffee Shops,” and you’ll get a list of cafés sorted by commitment to sustainability.  Click a link to a café, and you’ll get information about its location, phone number, payment options, links to relevant Web pages, and customer reviews.

Coupons: They get lost, forgotten, left behind or they expire. Look for augmented reality to start playing a larger role in location-based advertising. When you’re walking into your favorite coffee shop, the real-time mobile coupon you receive gives you instant gratification with your discounted cup of java.

Safe Text: Governments and safety advocates around the world have been warning about the dangers of texting and driving for some time. In 2010 you can expect technology solutions that disable handset features when the owner is driving.

Social Networks: As social networks continue to grow, businesses are investing more in community building as a marketing driver. According to the recent study released Deloitte, 94% of businesses will increase their investment in online communities and social media and, for the majority of these companies, their marketing function will drive this investment. The new marketing emphasis has shifted toward persuasion through fitting organically into the consumer’s social sphere

Browsing Time: Consumers will increase their average browsing time from the 4 minutes and 40 seconds average in 2009 to the 5 minutes and 30 seconds range. And average page views will increase from approximately 105 to 120 pages per month.

This means that relevancy becomes even more critical to engage consumers. Advertisers will be increasingly drawn to mobile’s unique opportunity to reach and engage consumers with immediate and location-specific content.

Privacy: Mobile privacy will become more of an issue in the near future. Reputable mobile marketing firms will follow guidelines set by industry trade associations. This means offering opt-out capabilities to protect personal identification information propel the development of more contextual and behavioral consumer ad targeting.

Mobile commerce and retail continue to grow: Fifty-five of consumers say they will their mobile device to find store locations, 45 percent to research prices, 40 percent to find product information, 32 percent to find discounts and coupons and 25 percent to make purchases.

Mobile-driven retail commerce will continue to increase with retailers leveraging new mobile-specific technologies to convert browsers into buyers.

Search: Mobile search is a category that will continue to grow in 2010 and beyond. Expect more localization and more businesses related to mobile search. As a result, mobile search will become a high driver of in-store traffic.

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Here are just a few of the trends that industry experts forecast in 2010:

Augmented reality: Augmented reality is the ability to merge a view of the physical world with enhanced data (or imagery) that is computer generated and thereby providing a richer view of the real world.

Using the GPS and the camera, your smartphone can sense what you are pointing at and show relevant data for that place. For example, a review for a restaurant or virtual signposts to help direct you to a location.

Many experts expect 2010 will be the year that this technology begins to be adopted on mobile phones but will remain a bell and whistle for a while. Although augmented reality will appear in more applications, consumers will still prefer the list and map versions to search results on a usage basis.

Growth of the mobile Web: US mobile Web will reach nearly 100 million unique users per month in 2010. Combined with the accelerated adoption of smartphones and mobile-specific sites, the mobile Web will reach more than one-half of the all consumers.

Geo-fencing: A geo-fence is a virtual field around any location that is used to trigger a mobile marketing message to a user when they enter or exit the area. Many experts forecast that 2010 is the year we will hear geo-fence become part of marketers’ vocabulary.

Expect to see retailers take advantage of this capability in exciting new ways        such as sending personalized messages to consumers leaving a sporting event or concert and to blanketing beach goers with messages on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Linking CRM databases and mobile marketing: Marketers are beginning to recognize the uniquely personal relationships that consumers have with their mobile phones.

For retail marketers, combining this with the CRM data that they are already collecting about their customers (past purchases and areas of interest) offers the opportunity to deliver personalized messages when a user is near one of their stores.

In 2010, we retailers will begin to take advantage of mobile CRM to extend their current data-driven marketing programs into mobile. Some retailers will get it and, unfortunately, others won’t.

New entrants into mobile: Advertisers, who previously relied on more traditional advertising channels, will increasingly allocate portions of their media spend to mobile in 2010.

More than 25 percent of brands anticipate spending more than $5 million on mobile advertising in 2010, up from 12.5 percent spending more than $5 million in 2009.

The leading mobile advertising verticals will include even more aggressive budgets from the pharmaceutical, automotive, travel and retail verticals and will challenge entertainment, telecom and portals for premium placements.

Small business mobile marketing is the way forward these days and mobile marketing in particular is the modern day new buzzword that can even become bigger than social media. As it is, more than ninety five percent of new phones today are equipped with web browsers and there are in excess of seventy million American consumers that use these on a regular basis. Furthermore, the numbers of SMSs sent annually total to about one trillion (figures for 2008).

All this should make you want to capitalize on the huge opportunities that can help you run a truly successful small business.

First of all, you should look at the benefits of using third party mobile applications which can help you avoid having to develop your own applications. Examples of these applications include Google Maps, Yelp and even those such as Pinch Media and AdMob as well as Medialets are worth checking out.

Secondly, you should check out the mobile versions of different social media sites. In particular, you will want to check out FaceBook and Twitter that each has its own mobile version. To make best use of these, your small business also needs to have a presence on these social media sites.

You can also succeed with Small business mobile marketing by creating your website that is mobile friendly. With search engines also including allowing people to search via mobile phones, it is important that you try and optimize your business website by making it easy for such searches.

You should also consider using SMS marketing or text message marketing which can help your small business thrive. As with email marketing, so with SMS marketing you can acquire many more leads and in addition this form of mobile marketing will also help in building up of relations with customers and it also enables you to sell your products more efficiently.

Finally, it pays to look at the benefits of mobile commerce which involves buying and selling of goods and services with the help of mobile sites and even through using mobile applications. Mobile banking is a good example of this form of commerce.