From Prosumer to Produser: Understanding User-Led Content Creation

From Prosumer to Produser: Understanding User-Led Content Creation Dr Axel Bruns Associate Professor ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology [email_address] http://snurb.info/ – http://produsage.org/

User-Generated Content

Widespread trend in media practice:

social media, social networking

Web 2.0 technologies

new, collaborative forms of content creation

across many interests and practices

Has Toffler’s ‘prosumer’ arrived?

“ The word is a combination of producer and consumer that perfectly describes the millions of participants in the Web 2.0 revolution.” ( Techcrunch , 2007)

(Image: http://flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/)

Tofflers Prosumer

Dreams of a “ customer-activated manufacturing system”:

In the end, the consumer, not merely providing the specs but punching the button that sets this entire process in action, will become as much a part of the production process as the denim-clad assembly-line worker was in the world now dying. ( The Third Wave , 1980: 274)

Producer and consumer, divorced by the industrial revolution, are reunited in the cycle of wealth creation, with the customer contributing not just the money but market and design information vital for the production process. Buyer and supplier share data, information, and knowledge. Someday, customers may also push buttons that activate remote production processes. Consumer and producer fuse into a “ prosumer.” ( Powershift , 1990: 239)

The Professional Consumer?

What do we mean by ‘prosumer’?

On-demand production initiated by consumers?

On-demand production of customer-submitted / modified designs?

Involvement of customers in design processes?

Or simply conventional high-end consumers? E.g.

Hi-fi fanatics

Car enthusiasts

Computer nerds

Individual ‘lead users’ (as described by von Hippel)

Prosumers remain dependent on industry production

Is that all there is?

(Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwenke/3022767703/)

(Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/topherous/93506030/)

Beyond Production

decline of the traditional value chain:

producer  distributor  consumer

(producer advised by consumer  distributor  consumer)

(customer-made ideas  producer  distributor  consumer)

What’s Happening Here?

Trends towards:

Commercial interests ‘Harnessing the Hive’ (J.C. Herz)?

Pro-Am Production (Charles Leadbeater & Paul Miller)?

Citizen-Consumer (John Hartley)?

User-generated products, created by a new ‘Generation C’ ( Trendwatching.com )?

Commons-based peer production (Yochai Benkler)?

P2P Production (Michel Bauwens)?

Is production still an appropriate term?

A New Value Chain?

(as producer)

produser

(as user)

content content

Produsage

emerging in various domains:

open source software development

online publishing

blogs

open news – e.g. Slashdot , Indymedia , OhmyNews

knowledge management

wikis – e.g. Wikipedia

social bookmarking – e.g. del.icio.us , digg

geotagging – e.g. Google Earth , Frappr

multi-user gaming

e.g. The Sims , Everquest , Second Life , Spore

media sharing and creative practice

e.g. Flickr , ccMixter , YouTube , Jumpcut , Current.tv

reviews and viral marketing

e.g. Epinions , IgoUgo

automatic aggregation

Google , Amazon , Technorati

Common Characteristics

shared across diverse environments:

Open Participation, Communal Evaluation – the community as a whole, if sufficiently large and varied, can contribute more than a closed team of producers, however qualified

Fluid Heterarchy, Ad Hoc Meritocracy – produsers participate as is appropriate to their personal skills, interests, and knowledges; this changes as the produsage project proceeds

Unfinished Artefacts, Continuing Process – content artefacts in produsage projects are continually under development, and therefore always unfinished; their development follows evolutionary, iterative, palimpsestic paths

Common Property, Individual Merit - contributors permit (non-commercial) community use of their intellectual property, and are rewarded by the status capital

(http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/capitalism1.htm)

(http://jpgmag.com/issues/19/full)

Produsage

beyond production:

‘ anyone can edit’ – users become producers of content

outcomes are no longer distinct products – they are temporary artefacts of a continuing process

usage and production are increasingly, inextricably intertwined

strict distinctions between producers, distributors, and consumers no longer apply

a new “ Generation C ” of content produsers?

this is produsage

(http://freebeer.org/blog/archives/134)

Breaking the Chains content development space set up by community or company to harbour produsage (e.g. Wikimedia Foundation; Google; SourceForge) commercial / non-profit harvesting of user-generated content (e.g. The Sims , Wikipedia on CD-ROM) commercial / non-profit services to support produsage (e.g. Red Hat, SourceForge) commercial activities by users themselves, harnessing the hive (e.g. support services, consultancies, content sales) initial IP contributions from individuals, the public domain, or commercial sources collaborative, iterative, evolutionary, palimpsestic user-led content development valuable, often commercial-grade content is created Produsage Environment (populated by produsers)

Further Extensions of Produsage Logic