Failure = Success

In an internet environment where content is king, creating good content rapidly enough to continually drive your viewers back to your site is tedious and sometimes impossible. That’s why the most successful websites are the ones that allow/encourage their users to submit their own content. Ten years ago, it would have been crazy to assume that you can make money (and lots of it) off of a product that your customers create. However, with the emergence of Web 2.0, this concept is commonplace. The new challenge lies in creating scenarios/engines that motivate customers to contribute or create content that others actually want to see. A simple idea can utilize humor, social networking or simple conversation to inspire web users to submit and post content onto your website that will effectively sell your site for you.

This concept is embodied by the popular blog-style site failblog.org, created in January 2008 (Link not included because content is occasionally inappropriate). Users can submit pictures or videos of various “failures”. “Failures” are characterized by a general lack of success, particularly a stupid or embarrassing mistake that someone or some group of people has made. It can also be a random misfortune, accident or mishap that happens to befall somebody and consequently be electronically documented. Each documentation of failure is humorously captioned with a variety of the word “fail”.

To date, users have submitted an enormous amount of content. Each “fail” is rated/commented on by thousands, and significantly funny entries receive large amounts of attention from the populous failblog community. This site keeps itself going, and reels in tens of thousands of users daily as they check in to catch the latest fails. By exploiting failure, failblog.org is a humongous success.

Here is a link to display all G-rated failblog entries. Check it out for yourself. G-Rated Fail Blog