The recent buzz around user-generated content isn’t misplaced. With younger users especially, who will become the next generation of consumers and developers, websites that leverage the ability for users to create and control content will grow the most. A recent report from Nielsen/NetRatings provides the numbers that support this notion.
Between November 2004 and November 2005, image hosting site PhotoBucket top the list of the fastest growing Web brands, spiking nearly 1,500 percent from 983,000 unique users to 15.6 million.
MySpace.com, in like fashion, shot up 752 percent, stretching its online space from 2.8 million unique visitors in 2004 to 24.5 million unique visitors in 2005. Social networking sites Facebook and Memegen.net grew by 530 percent and 446 percent respectively.
“Sites that strongly appeal to generation Y are those at which they can control the content,” said Nielsen/NetRatings senior media analyst Gerry Davidson. “They provide a desirable service in an entertaining format. Thus it is not surprising that many of the fastest growing sites fall into the social networking, blogging, and online member community genres.”
Almost the entire top ten list of the fastest growing Web brands were consumer-generated content centered, the least of which grew by 265 percent year over year.
Out of the more than 2,000 websites that met minimum reporting levels, visitors ages 12-24 were more likely than the average Web user to visit these sites. This is important, at the least, because this is your next generation of computer users. They are social, creative, and computer literate.
