http://andrewchenblog.com/2007/10/18/wsj-article-describing-the-difficulty-of-monetizing-ugc/ Essays on viral marketing, freemium, and social gaming Mon, 21 May 2012 01:55:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://andrewchenblog.com/2007/10/18/wsj-article-describing-the-difficulty-of-monetizing-ugc/comment-page-1/#comment-555 John DeMayo Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:54:57 +0000 http://andrewchenblog.com/2007/10/18/wsj-article-describing-the-difficulty-of-monetizing-ugc/#comment-555 <p>Most companies, brokers, and networks deal with user-generated, lower value, and hard to control content early on, and as companies mature they move "up-market" to higher quality more easily monitored content. I know this was the way with Advertising.com and most other ad networks, as well as a number of site aggregators. Given google has started with high quality, completely controlled content and is moving in the opposite direction, their errors in tackling this hard-to-tame media are made more public then a startups would. It's a tough place to be and one most companies don't find themselves in. Most companies move up-market as they get older, whereas google finds itself moving downmarket for growth.</p> Most companies, brokers, and networks deal with user-generated, lower value, and hard to control content early on, and as companies mature they move “up-market” to higher quality more easily monitored content. I know this was the way with Advertising.com and most other ad networks, as well as a number of site aggregators. Given google has started with high quality, completely controlled content and is moving in the opposite direction, their errors in tackling this hard-to-tame media are made more public then a startups would. It’s a tough place to be and one most companies don’t find themselves in. Most companies move up-market as they get older, whereas google finds itself moving downmarket for growth.

]]>