Contribution and Experience

“User-Generated Content” is an irreparably ugly and broken phrase. First, we’re people, not “users”. Second, people write and speak and design and compose and sing and play and build and earn and pay; machines “generate”. Third, it’s words and pictures and sound and money, not “content”. The trouble is, we need labels; short ones that still say something. Say, contribution and experience? The Net (really, truly) is the sum of billions of contributions from millions of people, and that’s all that’s interesting about it. People contribute at the edge, and experience the contributions at the edge. (Experience, not consume; the difference is obvious). The Net itself’s a contribution, by humanity to humanity, the engine of future contribution and experience. The Net’s not finished of course; contributing and experiencing, both of them, are too hard and awkward and slow.