There is a Friend born every minute...............

Forrester does not apparently like the term User in matters Social Networking or User Generated, and prefer the term "customer", or even "friend"

We quite agree with the User bit, terribly Old School, but demur re Friends...the correct term of course is "sucker".....

As in:

- who put up all the content on YouTube vs who got all the money*

- anything you put on Facebook is theirs. Forever.

Mind you, the barriers to entry for being a "friend" on a Social Net are so low, and the typical ratio of real"users" to "signups" are of the c 1:10 order, so it's probably far harder to be a de facto "user" than a friend....and if you don't believe us, well, who can doubt ValleyWag

Now, some more sanguine folk would argue that these businesses provide essential services to their addic...er friends, (and some are shocked - shocked I say - that other businesses are unsporting enough to think of paying the punters for creating that content) and this value justifies the appropriation of the customer created IP.

The serious point of this is post is the semantics are unimportant - what you call them thar users is less relevant than what they really are. And in our view, a service model where you do the work, and hand over your IP, for nothing, to enrich your new found friend is - very likely - not sustainable (with any quality anyway) medium term.

Or is this the New New Media, and the rules are different?

Maybe...but there is no really long term model like this in the Real World that we can point to - outside of voluntary organisations perhaps - (MacDonalds would probably love a business model where the customers made the hamburgers and ate them and just paid McD every time) where IP changes hands for nothing long term. In the short term, sure - status, kudos, connections are all useful outcomes, but can you feed a family on that? It could of course be that the "Social Networks" are different, that the sheer value of being connected to it makes it all worthwhile, and to cast doubt means one just doesn't "get it".

But we've heard that before.....

* Hint - read that copy of Time magazine (and it will be interesting to see how much ViaCom can claw back...)