It’s official. 2006 was the year of user-generated content. With the likes of YouTube and MySpace in the vanguard, end-users finally became what really mattered on the Internet. With those two sites alone cashing in over $2.5 billion on acquisition deals, more than a few took notice of all the content being created by countless, nameless and often unpaid Internet users.

User Generated Media by the Numbers

Now that UGM has broken into the mainstream, there is a lot of analysis being performed on the available data. Hitwise US generates a good chunk of such statistics.

Hitwise sampled 10 million Internet users and found traffic to YouTube exceeded the combined visits count to all four of the broadcast network sites by 500%. In the Hitwise Music category, MySpace increased its related traffic by over four times to 23%. Similar sites and bands taking MySpace into their own hands continues to usurp the powers of the giant record labels. Isn’t it great?!!

User Created Content in 2007

Where does all this leave us? Well, despite the big buyouts taking place in the social network arena, I believe it’s still rather difficult to fully quantify the value of all this content and traffic. However, when such serious cash is involved, you can bet your bottom dollar plenty are going to be trying to take advantage of it. We’ll see more ways to directly and indirectly pull money out of social networks and their unique content. We’re already starting to see end-users earning cash for content. That will likely make things a little less altruistic, but it’s nice to see the little guy get something for his or her efforts.

So really the question boils down to, is it better to be the next YouTube maker or the next YouTube user? I think I know my answer.