Powazek is 100% right about this but not for the reasons they mention in their post (this blogger doesn't take comments - probably shouldn't be viewed as an authority on 2.0)
UGC IS a blight on the industry - but not because the "term" is cold (which it is) - the problem with UGC is that when your primary focus is on the content, you loose. Users aren't (mentally) creating content when they create content - they are connecting to other users - content is just a by-product of "the conversation". Those services that enable conversations / transactions are kicking ass - those that are amassing content are not. It's ebay vs amazon, it's myspace vs digg, it's yahoo vs google - the winners will be the players that ignore the content & enable the conversation.
It's arrogant of the media industry to claim ownership of these new business models - just because they are ad-funded doesn't mean they are media - start to think of myspace as a telco and ebay as an exchange and you are on the right track.
The sooner we shake off our fixation with UCG the better.
