Brands used to fear consumer generated content. Jimmy equates this fear to the early days of the Internet when it consisted primarily of negativity on forums and message boards. Since it has now reached a higher level of quality and credibility, companies see the value in using it.

Brands such as Pepsi and Burger King have embraced consumer generated content through advertising and have received a large response from the community. Jimmy believes that any brand can find a way to advertise using CGM, but each brand has to discover how to interact with the consumer in order to be successful.

So, what’s in store for the future of consumer generated content such as Wikipedia? For starters, we should expect to see a lot more of it. Jimmy also predicts we will see other forms of CGM emerging that will offer even more business opportunities. It will be challenging, but success doesn’t usually come without hard work and innovation.

Speaking specifically about Wikipedia, Jimmy also clarifies what Wikipedia actually is and the reasoning behind Wikia Search shutting down.

Previously, Topix allowed its users to access the news of any region of their interest and to comment and discuss it. The response was great. Over 1 million people posted more than 5 million comments, which totaled up to more than 30,000 comments each day. The majority of the traffic was from local channels. The only problem — there was still a lack of local news even with 50,000 news sources. The news that was there, was not able to be conformed enough with merely algorithms. As a result of these findings, Topix.com completely opened up their site in order to give any user the power to discuss, as well as edit and share the news of their choice.

Topix is unique in that, no one else has all the local content around news that they have. People in small towns especially enjoy the site, if their town does not receive a lot of coverage.Topix acquires around 10 million comments each month. According to Tolles, Topix considers themselves to be a standard body and not a journalists’ organization. They do not want to give any one person full authority over a specific region.

In the beginning, Topix founders created the first open development directory for the Internet called the Open Directory Project, but is now the largest human-edited web directory. Jimmy Wales, best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, was a first licensee of of the Open Directory. According to Tolles, Wales credits the Open Directory Project as the genesis behind the idea of Wikipedia. Tolles does point out that they borrowed the idea of logging and making public logs from Wikipedia.

According to Tolles, advertising has been a difficult issue for Topix. They currently only use Google, but will most likely begin to directly sell to specific advertisers. Topix.com does include a Classified Ad section on its site that is being monetized on Google. As they obtain more traffic, they will get more ads. According to Tolles, it’s a challenge to monetize locally, especially since everyone is not on the Web right now. They believe time is in their favor since the Internet is continuing to grow and flourish.

“Anyone can create guidelines but unless people subscribe to them, they’re not going to be a lot of use. ”

O’Reilly and Wales’ say the recent circumstances concerning popular blogger Kathy Sierra’s reports of getting death threats are what inspired them to launch this endeavor. But here’s what Robert Scoble told Webpronews concerning the situation,

“Kathy Sierra was in my commentary this morning saying she doesn’t think that these guidelines would have stopped the kind of attacks that she’s now seeing.”

Blogger Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim strongly opposes the conduct, and he brought out an interesting point when he told us,

“Another big glaring observation and fault with it, is that it gives the person the opportunity to change the code of conduct as and when they see fit. So if that’s the opportunity that the blogger has that he doesn’t even need to hold himself to his own code of conduct… what’s the point of having one in the first place?”

Another issue that is raised concerning this set of rules is the fact that the bloggers are divided — some want to abide by the guidelines while others do not which will result in long-term problems. Steggles also told us,

“Essentially, people that adhere to these guidelines are going to get more exposure than those who don’t. So… there’s a concern down the road.”

Much concern has been raised as to the future of blogging. Scoble fears the real problem is not being addressed, and the bloggers are going to suffer for it.

“I think it’s too limiting, I think it tries to hit at a problem that I don’t think it would cure.”

Andy Beal also expressed those same concerns when he spoke with us about the matter,

“I think in the long term it will stifle growth that we’re seeing with blogs right now.”

Beal also summed up the feelings of many bloggers when he said,

“Let blogs as a whole continue to grow and thrive.”

The controversy remains–opponents argue that the point of blogging is that there are no rules, while supporters of the set of guidelines say they want a preventable cause of violence.

Conference Promoter and Book Publisher Tim O’Reilly along with Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales began a set of guidelines for online communication, otherwise known as blogging. After the recent outburst of hostility among well-known bloggers Mr. O’Reilly commented:

“(it) gives us an opportunity to change the level of expectations that people have about what’s acceptable online.”

He has already posted a set of tentative suggestions for improvement on his company website and is asking for comments and feedback. O’Reilly and Wales’ plan is actually to have a few sets of guidelines so that each blogger can pick which one best fits their page, post it, and the viewers know from the beginning what is allowed and what is not.

Mr. Wales said,

“If it’s a carefully constructed set of principles, it could carry a lot of weight even if not everyone agrees.”

Many bloggers already are becoming advocates of the set of guidelines. Popular blogger David Weinberger said,

“The aim of the code is not to homogenize the Web, but to make clearer the informal rules that are already in place anyway.”

O’Reilly and Wales lauched this endeavor after the well-known blogger Kathy Sierra reported getting death threats which brought up the issue of whether or not it is okay to delete certain comments. Sierra says she supports the move to make the web a more civil place.

Opponents of the set of guidelines say the rules violate their freedom of speech. The web is a place that has options – such as remaining anonymous and unaccountable.

Robert Scoble, a popular blogger who stopped blogging for a week when Kathy Sierra’s ordeal became public, says the proposed rules “make me feel uncomfortable.” He also adds, “As a writer, it makes me feel like I live in Iran.”

The guidelines are not meant to be restricting. O’Reilly says,

“That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make; believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech;Free speech is enhanced by civility.”