06 January 2010 | Author: M. Thomson SEO & Affiliate Consultant

Real-Time Reviews: the next user-generated content (UGC)

User-generated content is the process of creating and sharing various forms of publicly available media. Commonly seen on retail, travel and services websites, review-based user-generated content is known to have a strong influence on decision making in the user buying cycle, and this has led to a significant increase in the number of websites utilising user-generated reviews over the past few years.

However, user-generated reviews have become somewhat stale - as users became more familiar with their existence, they often get taken for granted and lose some of their selling power. This has led us to pose the question:

"In 2010, could 'static' user-generated reviews become a thing of the past, making way for the inevitable incorporation of real-time user-generated reviews?"

With both Bing and Google incorporating real-time posts from Facebook and Twitter into their natural search results, the potential of real-time reviews looks more promising - that is, if they are not here already. However, these reviews are currently seen as being the property of the websites on which they appear, such as search engines, and not of the websites of retailers etc.

Roll on 2010, in which bigmouthmedia can visualise the bank balances of real-time data providers such as Twitter and Facebook becoming significantly larger. These websites will not have to rely solely on deals with search engines, as it seems likely that retailers and travel services - the main websites utilising user-generated reviews - will jump on the bandwagon and pay providers for the ability to host real-time reviews of their products or services.

We've already seen a contract signed between Google and Twitter - potentially Google's attempt to secure its own branded, real-time reviews? Oops, me and my bigmouth...

That's not to forget that some websites have been somewhat cautious in their adoption of user-generated reviews. However, with this data being hosted elsewhere on sites such as Google or Amazon, choosing not to feature user-generated reviews on your website will likely have a negative impact on your website, as users will go elsewhere to read and write reviews, and will end up buying on other websites.

If websites realise this, we can expect to see them looking for an easy way to incorporate user-generated reviews - and the likes of Google, Facebook or Twitter could be the answer. We have already seen how quickly websites have adopted the likes of Facebook and Twitter over a very short period of time with the help of a little traditional media PR.

With the need for data becoming ever greater - not to mention the influence of search engines and social media on the web and its users - we shouldn't have to wait too long before a giant such as Amazon or eBay utilises real-time data to power its reviews: a move that may cause all to follow. Websites should be interested not only in the real-time data aspect of user-generated reviews, but also the social aspect that could see users contacting reviewers with direct messages in order to receive further details about their comment.