“The content of the Internet, and who is creating it, is changing.” That’s the lead sentence from today’s eMarketer story.
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, user-generated content sites comprise five out of the top 10 fastest-growing Web brands. “User-generated content sites” include sites for photo sharing, video sharing, blogging, personal Web sites, Wikipedia (5 billion page views monthly), and even Mormon Wikipedia. This is increasing evidence that users expect to contribute content to sites as they consume content, both increasing the value of the site and drawing more participants. Most of these increases are due to viral (word-of-mouth) marketing.
Note the huge growth rates in the following sites from July 2005 to July 2006: ImageShack 233%, Heavy.com video site 213%, Flickr image site 201%, Artist Direct music site 185%, MySpace 183%, and Wikipedia 181%.
So, how do we capitalize on this trend in a way that provides good content about the Church on the Web?
1. First, we need widespread adoption of web site usage for local units. I don’t think the ward/stake websites are being used nearly enough. One way to remedy this is to create friendly URLs so that people can remember them – such as https://secure.lds.org/units/stake/ which seems to be a pilot or test URL?
2. Make it easier for people to obtain access to these sites. Currently, you need to register with your membership number and confirmation date (if memory serves me correctly). Lazy ward clerks can really slow this process down. Then, people forget about it, and end up not wanting to have anything to do with the site because of the difficulty of gaining access. I’m not sure of a way to get around this (since I understand the church’s desire to control who has access to unit information)…
3. Once it’s easy to access, make the sites more content-driven. There are problems behind this.. such as people posting offensive content, unapproved items, etc. Perhaps, like wikipedia and other sites, there could be an administrator with the ability to moderate content submitted by members. So instead of somebody being called to manage the ward’s website and submit all content, that person could be the “ward web site moderator” who would manage the content being submitted by the ward members about their activities, photos from recent events, etc.
My 2¢.
I totally understand the Church’s concerns for privacy.
As a scoutmaster, I would love to have our troop’s historian to post photos and information about our various activities.
The ward website would be a great place to put this information because it would eliminate most privacy concerns (in my opinion).
We’ve posted small photos on our ward’s page, but they disappear in about a week and don’t seemed to be accessible anywhere after. The caption information is pretty limited as well.
I’ve often wondered about the appropriateness of LDS User Generated Content (UGC) sites, or at least non-blog ones. Given our belief in absolute truth and revelation via living prophets, it’s likely that problems may arise with users being able to contribute to a site such as Wikimormon if those contributions aren’t in harmony with revealed truth. One only has to stroll around the Bloggernacle to see the wide variety of stances on many of our beliefs. Perhaps if such a wiki required referencing to GC talks or somesuch for every entry made (a la Wikipedia’s “citation needed”) it might be able to be viewed as more of a ‘trusted authority’. However, knowing how much of an issue wikipedia has become in academic settings, I have to wonder how people would take it if members started saying “well it says such and such on the LDS Wiki, so it must be true…”
This is quite interesting, the problem is really based around “what kind of content is appropriate” for members to be creating. Conversion Stories, Family Histories, Experiences, Testimonies would all be appropriate to share online.
Why not have an online collection of testimonies? Conversion stories? Family Histories? This wouldn’t be much different than ward programs that already exist (photo and testimony in the Book of Mormon).
There are many ways people can contribute. Wikis and blogs are just one way. Think of the ability for people to record audio books for those who have vision or reading problems. Think of the help members of the church can provide in translation services. Think of ways people could help others track down genealogy information in other regions of the world. The exciting thing about the web is that it enables much of this collaboration in a way never before seen.
I think that it would be great if on the Admin side you could see the last login by a user. We can see who’s registered. But no way to know how used the site really is.
Wouldn’t it be great for ward and stake historians to have a website that enabled leaders to document the happenings in their ward? As it stands, the church seems to veto any website that is not church produced. How can I introduce my ward and stake leaders to a wonderful family-friendly website to fulfil the annual historian report and not get shut down before they even see it? Any ideas would be appreciated