<P> In 2006 CNN launched CNN iReport, a project designed to bring user generated news content to CNN . Its rival Fox News Channel launched its project to bring in user - generated news, similarly titled "uReport". This was typical of major television news organisations in 2005--2006, who realised, particularly in the wake of the London 7 July bombings, that citizen journalism could now become a significant part of broadcast news . Sky News, for example, regularly solicits for photographs and video from its viewers . </P> <P> User - generated content was featured in Time magazine's 2006 Person of the Year, in which the person of the year was "you", meaning all of the people who contribute to user generated media such as YouTube and Wikipedia . A precursor to user - generated content uploaded on YouTube was America's Funniest Home Videos . </P> <P> While the benefit derived from user generated content for the content host is clear, the benefit to the contributor is less direct . There are various theories behind the motivation for contributing user generated content, ranging from altruistic, to social, to materialistic . Due to the high value of user generated content, many sites use incentives to encourage their generation . These incentives can be generally categorized into implicit incentives and explicit incentives . </P> <Ol> <Li> Implicit incentives: These incentives are not based on anything tangible . Social incentives are the most common form of implicit incentives . These incentives allow the user to feel good as an active member of the community . These can include relationship between users, such as Facebook's friends, or Twitter's followers . Social incentives also include the ability to connect users with others, as seen on the sites already mentioned as well as sites like YouTube, which allow users to share media from their lives with others . Users also share the experiences that they have while using a particular product / service . This will improve the customer experience as they can make informed decisions in buying a product, which makes them smart buyers . Other common social incentives are status, badges or levels within the site, something a user earns when they reach a certain level of participation which may or may not come with additional privileges . Yahoo! Answers is an example of this type of social incentive . Social incentives cost the host site very little and can catalyze vital growth; however, their very nature requires a sizable existing community before it can function . </Li> <Li> Explicit incentives: These incentives refer to tangible rewards . Examples include financial payment, entry into a contest, a voucher, a coupon, or frequent traveler miles . Direct explicit incentives are easily understandable by most and have immediate value regardless of the community size; sites such as the Canadian shopping platform Wishabi and Amazon Mechanical Turk both use this type of financial incentive in slightly different ways to encourage user participation . The drawback to explicit incentives is that they may cause the user to be subject to the over justification effect, eventually believing the only reason for the participating is for the explicit incentive . This reduces the influence of the other form of social or altruistic motivation, making it increasingly costly for the content host to retain long - term contributors . </Li> </Ol>

Citizen media is another name for user-generated media or participatory media