Time Out founder: Relying on user generated content leads to shit websites
Time Out founder Tony Elliott has attacked “shit” rival sites as shallow offerings that rely too much on user generated content.
Speaking on a visit to Australia, the chairman of the global Time Out Group told Mumbrella editor Tim Burrowes:
“The key thing that sets Time Out apart from all other web sites and all other printed things is that we do information really well.
The world is full of shit websites which are all taking these silly little feeds and user generated content and the quality is very shallow.”
Elliott also predicted the day when there would be no print editions of the brand which currently publishes directly and under franchise across the world.
Time Out launched in Australia around four years ago, initially in Sydney but now with a strong presence in Melbourne with plans for other cities too.
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“The key thing that sets Time Out apart from all other web sites and all other printed things is that we do information really well”.
Massive call… “all other web sites and all other printed things”. Didn’t realise Time Out was the best publication ever, might have to start actually reading it.
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No user gen content for my new web 3.0 integrated online crowdsourced usergenerated multi level deal of the day website?
Sheeeet. My social media consultants are telling me that user generated content is the future!
Oh well. I am only going to spend $200k on my new viral campaign with it’s integrated social media capabilities……..
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Time Out is great for people Tony Elliott’s or my parents’ age i.e. bloody ancient
I use Concrete Playground and Two Thousand. Their writers actually KNOW the city they’re talking about.
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i thought time out was a chocolate bar…..
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This guy has failed to realise that there is a distinction between pure user-generated sites (largely forums; largely rubbish content) and hybrid or moderated user-gen sites.
Both our sites take large numbers of user-submitted articles (ie, 400 + articles a month) but the thing is, we moderate and edit ALL posts to ensure high quality.
Tell me you can tell the difference between what’s user submitted and what’s professional content on http://www.lostateminor.com/ ?
We get so much great content from our audience.
Likewise on The Roar http://www.theroar.com.au/ we post over 200 articles from fans monthly.
It’s all about how you moderate and control the quality of the content.
Mate you are as dumb and clueless about online as the idiots that run Timeout Australia!
Go away
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That’s a stretch! The magazine is okay, but Time Out is getting hammered online.
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He has a good point. The presentation and accessibility of information is of a high quality and fun to read as well.
It beats mumbo jumbo posted by over zealous pseudo-cultural blogger types, and the unimaginative newspaper lifestyle sections which repeat themselves after running out of new subject matter every couple months.
If we were to rely on reading the artsy fartsy lifestyle/fashion/culture mags floating about out there we’d all still be under the impression the only cool place to drink coffee on the weekend was sitting on a milk crate next to a graffitied wall in central bondi.
….. not that I let publications inform me of where to get my coffee …..
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let me guess, he’s English?
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He couldnt have it more wrong thinking user generated sites are shit. Realising that writing ability doesn’t equal quality of content has opened up a whole new untapped wealth of information for audiences.
Read some sport user generated sites which consist of articles from veterans who have been involved for up to 40 years in one sport and tell me that their info doesn’t shit on a journo’s, who researched their story for one week.
User generated content is the way of the future. Look at the deals which major publishers (CBS, ABC etc.) in the US have with UG sites for content. Its a gold mine for them.. like having an unlimited pool of reporters with years of inside knowledge about all topics.
Which is probably why Ten bought shares in The Roar.
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Who are these “heavy weight cultural” people he speaks of?
Also, I just checked Time Out Sydney, and couldn’t see any small events they supposedly champion.
Perhaps, Tony Elliott is projecting what he thinks Time Out is, as opposed to how Australians see it – with no cultural heritage, basically it has no rep here.
Side note: Who is Time Out’s intended market? It is all very grey.
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He needs to take time out and come to his senses!
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Sounds like someone has realised they have a “shit” business model.
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Did you know, the world is full of shit websites?
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I just wish he would get a decent shirt!
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Good point! You can’t be taken seriously if you look like a clown!!!!!
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Let’s stir this cauldron and get Tim some more page impressions.
You know Tony’s right – from the hateful anonymous UGC seen on many sites (often with an un-disclosed interest), to the staff writing obvious “great food and beverage” articles about their own hotels on TripAdvisor (“astroturfing” now illegal in the UK and US), to the shallow “I think this is very nice” useless and unqualified comments on the thousands of restaurant sites. Most UGC is worthless and not worth the paper it isn’t printed on.
Publishers love UGC because it is free/cheap (and there are hundreds of candidates for the fewer and fewer paid journalism jobs wanting to make a name for themselves) but mainly because it creates more page impressions to sell. Most users skip reading it in most situations. @Zac – it can be interesting if properly moderated by an editor.
Time Out Australia getting hammered online?
That’s the kind of nincompoop UGC we’re talking about – Sydney iPhone app October, Melbourne site November, Melbourne iPhone app straight after, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth beta sites in February, new Australia beta home page yesterday, Sydney moving to new code next month. 99% of our AUDITED inventory so highly valued by blue-chip advertisers that it is all but sold out until end of March.
We’re getting hammered at the pub to celebrate, offline.
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… but really, digital’s hardly this new phenemonen of “user generated content” (is it still called ‘media 2.0’? I can hardly keep up these days). Talkback radio’s been doing it for 30 years! And that medium largely remains monosyllabic, histrionic gas-bagging. And to be fair, the bloke’s right, most of the sites he talks about are largely shite….
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Julian- Tony is not right. Full f#-king stop
His opinion is wrong, out dated and the stupid sort of thing only a print person would say.
What you and Tony are missing is that not everyone wants to be told what to do and where to go by underpaid and overhyped time out writers. Instead they want to become the content creators themselves and they want to engage with the site and its other readers. Its a cycle of communication- not the one way communication model that print based companies try to bring to the digital world.
As for sites that use UGC to create page impressions. Of course they bloody do. Last time i checked thats they way you make money online- you create a community, they move around your site and you sell ad’s within that community.
But the real difference between these UGC sites and timeout is profitability. You can bag them all you want, but their business models are much much more profitable than yours will ever be. No-one will ever pay the equivilant of double page glossy ad rates in the online world.
Cut your writing team in half, open the gates to UGC, get some sales people with online experience and you might have a chance.
Just please dont harp on with bullshit about launching iphone app’s (is it 2009?) when your business model aint working
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RB… I’d hardly call print ‘dead’ (despite what a few digi people with a heavily vested interest in the medium might say on this site.) I don’t have the facts to hand, but 3 million Australians still buy a newspaper every Saturday and we remain the world’s most voracious consumers of paper-baed magazines. Numbers/consumers/advertisers/revenues no digital property can hold a flame to. By the time the majority of people consume the majority of their media digitally the ipad, the tablet, the internet and the kindle that you espouse will be about as relevant as Beta video. We’ll all be reading ‘The Mars Street Journal’ via a computer chip the Murdoch family implanted in our brains!
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I can’t describe how frustrated and disappointed this makes me feel.
I used to respect TimeOut as a publishing organisation. But this is pure old school publishing, applying old school thinking. It is so frustrating because it is misses the point so much.
It shows that those at top have no idea about the role, the innovation, the opportunities and the challenges that digital and UGC content places upon publishing organisations.
If this is what TimeOut are saying today, they are sooooooo far behind the curve. This is the sad thing.
TimeOut could choose to innovate and challenge. But they have chosen safe and traditional.
So all I can say, in the end, sad or not – you reap what you sow.
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@Keef
I didn’t say print was dead. Far from it. The crap magazines are just being weeded out and only the best will survive over the long term.
My point was that the print and online mediums are very different and they require different business models and different thinking.
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Tony Elliot’s message is brought to you on Youtube…worth more than EMI 3 years from startup.
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Why does anyone buy into this online/offline crap…who cares. I just want the REV!
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Julian,
You Time Out people keep wanging on about your app like you guys actually had something to do with its development.
It is EXACTLY the same as the Time Out London app i’ve had on my phone for the last year. Dropping your content in sure took you a long time.
And entering it into awards as if it were developed here is a bit of a joke, no?
Also, the list of ‘achievements’ you reel off is hardly notable. You’re taking global brand guidelines and just rolling it out in new markets under licence. Nothing innovative there fella.
The Time Out model is an old and broken one, and you guys are desperately trying to be relevant and cool but totally missing the mark.
Instead, it just comes off as a cheesy, try-hard brand that has no idea what the hell is actually going on.
Once again, it’s a great site for my Mum and Dad, just not for anyone in their 20s or 30s.
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@GN
Would agree with you if it was true: have a look at the beta ‘My Time Out’ on Time Out London – this uses Facebook connect and creates personal pages for users on the site to curate themselves – I can show my friends what restaurants I like, what events I am going to and get automated notifications when, say, a new small fashion shop opens in a specified area:
http://www.timeout.com/user/10001704/feed/
@RB
Sure some user generated content sites make $, but what we are talking about here is authority of content. Dirty Harry said “Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.” Everyone has one – but it doesn’t make them worth reading. There are exceptions but Tony is right – there are many so shallow and shit UGC sites.
A lot of UGC could be compared with a very fat armchair sports fan yelling at the Aussie cricket team from his sofa. He screams that he could do better and he believes it too. But he’s taken no time to acquire the skills or practise them – so there’s no sense in letting him play cricket for Australia.
I think Jeffrey Cole talked about his at Circus this week. Although I didn’t see him this time he talked about a trend that he has witnessed – young web users are excited by UGC as they think it’s more reliable than professionally produced content – but this is something that they get over as they get older and realise their peers don’t necessarily speak with authority.
@Anna
Let’s stick to the UGC discussion please. Plenty of innovation going on here. Our app and Time Out London’s were both developed in Surry Hills and we stated they were similar in our press release at the time:
http://www.timeoutsydney.com.a.....ne_App.PDF
We didn’t just enter awards, we’re finalists in AIMIA Best mobile product or service. See you at the awards.
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Julian,
MyTimeOut may be an interesting new and shiny tool for TimeOut but I would call that catchup not innovating or challenging. In digital terms that is about so 2 years ago. But you have to start somewhere I suppose, so while you’re at it, can you please improve the user experience please, it needs a lot of work!
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@Julian
The “authority of content” argument is another one your old mate from the UK must have told you about. Its OLD SKOOL print people talk.
It just doesn’t translate to revenue and profitability in the digital world and your P and L is telling you that right now.
Do yourself a favor and ask a couple media agents what they are after and why they moved half their budgets to facebook last QTR.
And what i think Anna is trying to say- is pull your heads in and stick to what you know, which isn’t the digital world.
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Keep an eye out for the new Concrete Playground. We’ll be launching in a couple of weeks in several cities in Australian and NZ, and will be taking things a bit further than just Facebook Connect.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on how ‘shit’ it is, Julian.
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Google’s algorithm update from New Media Age.
“If you’re relying on third parties to populate your site, then don’t expect any favours from the search engines.”
http://www.nma.co.uk/3024123.article
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