Producing Produsage

Produsage...yes not producing or producer but produsage. I swear its legit the word, even look it up on google! The concept of produsage is a quite hard to define, its related to production, distribution and consumers. Its not specifically one of those terms yet its a combination of them. To bring your head around the idea of produsage, lets take a look at the traditional value chain which consists of Producer distributing products to consumers. In the produsage value chain it goes content is produced by a producer in which user can access said content, in which that user can become a producer producing content which can be accessed by other users. Following me here?

Thing kid is confused legit!

In essence Produsage is when users can become producers and consumers at the same time, a  prime example would be wikipedia: a website consisting of user generated material which is regulated, evaluation, updated by the sites community. Produsage is most applicable in terms information or online production. Its most relevant to information as information and data are rarely ever considered a completed product, perhaps an opposing information contests the validity of the previous information product? In such a case it would be deemed best to amend said data? or perhaps a variable previously not considered has significant influence over prior data? These kind of factors is what makes information an in-stable resource, and the practicality of produsage shines here. The website of wikipedia is regulated and updated by its community, in constant evaluation by a large amount of users its relevance and accuracy would be quite high provided the community intends to keep it that way.

 

Troll face gotta love em

There are many other examples of the uses of produsage; wikipedia, facebook, twitter, devianart etc. Axel Bruns a prime researcher in this field explains the benefits of produsage in business, he states that it can lead user-led innovation (Due to the high number of users, one is generally bound to be a genius), crowd sourcing (communities attract people and many other miscellaneous things), viral marketing (who doesn't like the Hitler says videos?), Boost to brand recognition (I'm sure the majority of the world recognized Facebook, so long as they internet... its even in the auto-correct), improved brand perception (If a lot of people know it, its bound to be popular). Some the threats to having produsage is the lack of control due to high user generated content (it may be hard to moderate or filter content if the business is going a transparent honest approach). If you screw with the community expect backlash (no-one likes people kicking their dog except themselves).

Produsage however isn't something that can grow by itself when you create the environment for it. It requires the right environment, an open honest transparent environment which allows the exploration of ideas or concepts. It requires the tools needed for self-regulation, editing and moderating. Supporting the community through communication and giving content for them to work with, lastly the one thing that will kill any community, exploitation...should be avoided at all costs.