The empowered consumer

A shift has occurred in the past decade with consumers becoming 'users' and ads becoming 'content'.

The rise of the Gen C is happening alongside the changes in devices (i.e web, mobile, iQ box, etc.). Initially called the 'click & go' generation, the Gen C is more than a demo. C can indeed stand for any and all of the following:
- community
- connected
- creative
- content
- celebrity

Their home is MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr
Their device is a mobile phone - it the trustworthy device of the Gen C (interestingly a survey showed that people were happy to lend their car, their home, even their husband to their best friend but 70% of them wouldn't lend their mobile phone)
Their communication revolves around Social networking sites, messenger, SMS (not emails, emails are for the older generations)
Their network accounts around 110 individuals with a core group of 10-15 (e.g Facebook network, chances are you have 200 'friends' but only correspond with 10 or 15 of them)

The change of devices incurred a change of behaviour. The users attention is shifting:
- 84% of respondants to a Nielsen survey (Aus/NZ) use some form of web 2.0
- 83% consume user generated content
- 77% comment or create UGC
- 78% download audio or video
- and more importantly, they trust unknown peers more than experts

So is technology the cause for empowering users? (i.e HD recorders, sling box, Torrent, Joost, Hulu, YouTube, Mobile tv, etc.)
Or is this community?
Well, a bit of both really...

With communities has also emerged 'user filtered content ' - if a content is good/strong enough, user will pass it on... It is also interesting to note that not all social-networking sites serve the same purpose. There a social-networking map (which I couldn't draw here) but basically it contains the below:
- identity (in the centre)
- sharing (e.g Flickr, YouTube)
- presence (e.g MySpace)
- conversation (e.g Messenger)
- groups (e.g Facebook)
- reputation (e.g MySpace)
- relationships (e.g Facebook)