The media world is awash with talk of user-generated content (UGC). Particularly for us here at the Internet Advertising Bureau this is a subject of huge relevance, and one which we’ve found more and more advertisers in the UK want (and need) to know about.

The Buzz on user generated content and social media, available to download below, is your difinitive guide to all things UGC. Not only will it provide you with the background and context for its various executions, but it will also identify the latest news stories, the key players, main developments and examples of where brands have embraced the phenomenon to varying degrees of success. And if that's not enough, at the end of each chapter we provide a series of recommendations and practical advice for marketers looking to embrace UGC.

UGC is an exciting phenomenon, and represents a significant sea-change in consumer behaviour. On the official website of Tim Berners-Lee, the brains behind the internet we know and love, he outlines his original 1989 plan for the World Wide Web. His dream was of a "common information space in which we communicate by sharing information; a realistic mirror of the ways in which we work and play and socialise." That's quite some dream, but the exponential growth of UGC means that it was by no means unrealistic.

UGC is a key characteristic of this so-called era of web 2.0 (an exploration of which could form a report in itself) but put simply, it describes the ‘next generation’ of online use. Web 2.0 identifies the consumer as a major contributor in the evolution of the internet into a two-way medium. It emphasises the fact that UGC is here to stay, and therefore must at least be understoodby marketers hoping to keep up with their consumers.

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