Each year internet users and web 2.0 enthusiasts publish on the Web an ever growing amount of original content, at a constantly increasing rate.

These new content producers, these prosumers who merge the role of content producers and consumers, are the founding base the Web was built on. Since the beginning, the Internet has been animated by websites created by single individuals rather than publishers or institutions. This, combined with interactivity, is what distinguishes the Net from any other media, and is its driving force.

Taking into consideration user-generated content and the prosumer phenomenon in their widest sense, we can treat as prosumer any user that produces content, be it an ad, a blog post or a product put up for auction. Most blogs and services such as online photo albums or eBay, YouTube and Craigslist can be included in the prosumer phenomenon. The content produced by this relevant percentage of internet users is characterized by great variety, quality and, thus, value.

The Internet has demonstrated that millions of people throughout the Globe want to express themselves, share experiences and create content value, but also that these people develop hundreds of thousands of niches of interests, niches that usually find a number of followers far greater than the number of those who created them.
Until recently there were doubts if these niches could find an adequate space and visibility. In an economic system based on the 80-20 rule, the widespread belief was that people were interested in a narrow range of topics, that only certain mainstream TV shows, movies or musicians could find success. The Web has debunked this rule, creating its own curve, which we now know as the Long Tail.

The Web has become increasingly entrenched in our collective consciousness giving us access to an almost infinite amount of information. It has shaped our outlook, and is the great cultural revolution of our time. But now a new concern emerges. Is the Internet becoming a finite space?

With this online content growing rate, the Internet, considered until now as the only media with limitless space and influence, may reach its limit. It’s not only a technological or infrastructural matter but, more importantly, it’s a question of content value chain. Here’s what we mean.

We know that roughly 90% of internet users find what they are looking for using a search engine (mainly Google). We also know that they normally browse through the first three pages of search results. Today the prosumer’s main concern is to appear in this limited range of results. With the constant user-generated-content growth this challenge will become harder and harder, increasing the risk that most of the user-generated-content will no longer reach its audience.
This could create a growing frustration among prosumers and, in the end, the prosumer phenomenon could either die out or at least stop growing.

The next great challenge is to find, select, filter and emphasize high-value independent content within this growing mass of information. It’s a new challenge due to the evolution in Web usage, boosted by the increasing number of instruments that facilitate content creation, publishing and sharing.

Some existing approaches seem promising. Digg, Delicius, and other folksonomy based approaches come to mind. We deeply agree with them: users must be engaged in the process of discovering, filtering and valorizing content.

This is where Liquida comes in, as a new content value boosting tool, based on a proprietary approach involving content treatment, natural language processing and semantic technologies, driven by an original human approach for qualitative criteria definition and implementation and a professional editorial structure for content valorization and presentation, an innovative approach that will hopefully bring us closer to overcoming this challenge and ensuring that quality and value will not be lost.