Generation C...

Trendwatching - my personal favorite for new things in the world of the consumer - uses (created actually) the term Generation C to describe (more aptly) the revolution happening on and off the web. I can do the term justice, so will utilize the definition provided by Trendwatching...

No, this is not about a new niche generation of youngsters born between March 12, 1988 and April 24, 1993; the C stands for CONTENT , and anyone with even a tiny amount of creative talent can (and probably will) be part of this not-so-exclusive trend.

So what is it all about? The GENERATION C phenomenon captures the an avalanche of consumer generated 'content' that is building on the Web, adding tera-peta bytes of new text, images, audio and video on an ongoing basis.

The two main drivers fuelling this trend? (1) The creative urges each consumer undeniably possesses. We're all artists, but until now we neither had the guts nor the means to go all out. (2) The manufacturers of content-creating tools, who relentlessly push us to unleash that creativity, using -- of course -- their ever cheaper, ever more powerful gadgets and gizmos. Instead of asking consumers to watch, to listen, to play, to passively consume, the race is on to get them to create, to produce, and to participate.

Now, their site has hundreds of examples, but I would like to include a few of my own below...

1. Blurb - a company that allows to you create, submit, print and bind your own book.
2. Cafe Press - you own t-shirt factory, including the back end ordering and payment processing (so really factory and retail store) - they also make it easy to add to your own web site.
3. 99 Dogs - another t-shirt factory (but I like them better than Cafe Press, but I'm a non-conformist - yea right!)
4. iPrint - biz cards, brochures, chachke - click, create, buy - they do the rest. Also, have a back-end for mom-n-pop print shops to have an online presence
5. Blogger - of course you have to have a blog, I use blogger (although there are others just as good, I used to use Movable Type before they went all commercial - good for Six Apart)

So, as we look into the future, there will be more of these types of company (by the way, the only newbie on the list is Blurb, all the others have been around since before the bubble burst - so no matter what they say, Web 2.0 is not really that new after all) -- have fun looking around for other Generation C type companies and get out there and signup for the Trendwatching Newsletter.