Some great reading here by Steve Outing on his lessons in starting and closing a grassroots media group focused on user generated content. He identifies some of the key challenges and opportunities both in this world. In particular, the business model is hard, and content *is* king. As he notes:
I went in to the Enthusiast Group venture believing that grassroots or user content could survive (mostly) on its own. After all, Youtube has done pretty well for itself with amateur video; there are a lot of crappy videos on that site, as well as brilliant, funny, entertaining ones. Ditto for Flickr for amateur photos.
But those websites managed to catch fire, and the size of the audience ensured that there would be enough great content to attract and retain a huge audience. For less-grandiose operations with smaller audiences -- and unlikely prospects for hitting it big -- I am not convinced that user content can a successful website make.
The full article is worth reading. In the last bubble, the concept of "first mover advantage" concept was all the rage. Simply, the goal was to get big fast. In some cases it worked, in some it didn't. Could it be first mover still lives?