Summary of Article

Summary of 'Writers who work for nothing: its a licence to print money'
by John Naughton

• When the virgin express train bound for Glasgow crashed in Cumbria on 24th February shortly after on the BBC news website appeared details of the crash and a photograph taken inside one of the derailed carriages with the anchor: ‘send pictures to yourpics@bbc.co.uk’
  
  
• A passenger had taken the picture using a camera phone and dispatched via the mobile network to the BBC. This is an example of what has become known as user-generated content.
  
  
• The London bombings of July 7th 2005 marked the first time we had seen such content impact on traditional news media in Britain. Many pictures and footage flooded in from camera phones and digital cameras of observer at the scenes of the attacks.
  
  
• Main stream media suddenly began to understand what user-generated content meant.
  
  
• Since then the digital media generated by the public has become in comprehensible.
  
  
• Good news for the hard drive and media storage manufacturers.
  
  
• Optimists see it as a great release of human creativity which up till now has been unheard of because of lack of technology.
  
  
• Cynics see it differently: as living proof that giving bloggin or movie editing software to the average punter is like giving a clock to a monkey. To them, the user-generated content movement is just vanity publishing on steroids.
  
  
• Sceptics ask: how the constant increase of media can be controlled and managed financially and physically.