User-generated content

User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is content generated by users of the Internet such as images, videos, audio, text, testimonials, and software.

Definition

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has defined three core variables for UGC:

Accessible Content: User-generated content (UGC) is publicly produced through platforms located on the Internet and is available to any individual browsing such a publicly accessible website or a public social media account. There are other contexts where users must remain in a community or closed group to access and publish on such platforms (for example, wikis). This is a way of differentiating that although the content is accessible to the audience, there are certain restrictions for the users who generates the content.

Creative effort: Creative effort was put into creating the work or adapting existing works to construct a new one; i.e. users must add their own value to the work. UGC often also has a collaborative element to it, as is the case with websites that users can edit collaboratively. For example, merely copying a portion of a television show and posting it to an online video website (an activity frequently seen on the UGC sites) would not be considered UGC. However, uploading photographs, expressing one's thoughts in a blog post or creating a new music video could be considered UGC. Yet the minimum amount of creative effort is hard to define and depends on the context.

Creation outside professional routines and practices: User-generated content is generally created outside professional routines and practices. It often does not have an institutional or a commercial market context.