Scripting News points out “Jon Udell picks “user generated content” as the most offensive buzzword.” There are only two industries that refer to the their customers as “users” and we don't want to be emulating the other one.
Doc Searls has pointed out the oxymoron “consumer-generated content” as pretty dumb, too. Despite what Big Media wants you to think, generating sound, video and text makes you a producer, not a consumer. Doc has been on a tear lately about the terrible business model Big Media (and the Internet Provider – Telephone – Cable Oligopoly) is trying to shove down everyone's throat: Big Media produces, end-user-consumers feed from the trough, large pipes down, tiny upload capabilities in an unbalanced asymmetry. That's not the world, it's the world as Big Media wants it. That's not the internet, that's television, that's broadcast, that's last century.