Google Eyes Consumer-Generated Media

Posted by Melanie Phung on Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 9:17 am

CEO Eric Schmidt said during a press event that Google intends to start focus on consumer-generated media (CGM). The company not only wants to help users create content, but also organize and search for work created by fellow users. A new feature, called Google Co-op, allows users to search specifically for user-generated content and “annotations.”

MediaPost Publications reports:

Greg Sterling, principal analyst for Sterling Marketing Intelligence, said Google’s emphasis Wednesday on consumer-generated content marks a turning point for the company, which traditionally has been relatively weak in the medium. “They didn’t anticipate the rise of MySpace, and I thought that that was an area where Yahoo was investing very heavily,” he said. “Every new company that comes into view has some sort of social layer, and they really hadn’t done much. This seems to be a much broader and bigger push and a recognition of that.”