User-Generated Content

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does User-Generated Content Mean?

User-generated content (UGC) refers to any digital content that is produced and shared by end users of an online service or website. This includes any content that is shared or produced by users that are members or subscribers of the service, but it is not produced by the website or service itself.

Advertisements

User-generated content is also known as consumer-generated media (CGM) or conversational media.

Techopedia Explains User-Generated Content

User-generated content is generally considered a form of conversational media, meaning that the content leads toward initiating a conversation. In fact, the conversation that follows from a UGC is a form of UGC itself. The UGC produced by users can be viewed, consumed and shared by other users of the website or service.

Some forms of UGC include:

  • Images
  • Videos
  • Status updates/tweets
  • Infographics
  • Comments
  • Blogs
  • Online ads

Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are popular social platforms that work and operate mostly or entirely on user-generated content. Online forums, classified websites and product review websites also rely on UGC.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.