• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, November 6, 2006

With all the user-generated content flooding the Web, it's no wonder that critics are asking whether it's any good. But that's not the question marketers and media execs are asking, said Ze Frank, a consultant and entertainer who runs the site ZeFrank.com. Their concerns, he said, are more mercenary: How do we make money off of it?

Speaking at a panel at Ad:Tech in New York this morning, the performance artist compared much consumer-generated work to the drawings of kindergarteners. While many lack talent, the point is that everyone's spending time drawing--and there's a way to monetize that.

Frank and other panelists--AOL's Terry Pittman, Huffington Post's Jonah Peretti and Mediaedge:cia's Bob DeSena--were addressing consumer-generated media and "engagement." Moderator Pete Blackshaw of Nielsen BuzzMetrics sought to get the panelists talking about whether sites with high levels of "engagement" were, therefore, more valuable to advertisers.

The answers, however, were not clear-cut. "Engagement is not a well-defined word at all," Frank said, adding that the concept of "valuation" was similarly fuzzy. Until those metrics are better defined, he said, it doesn't make sense to talk about which sites are most valuable.

The Huffington Post's Peretti added his own insights into consumer-generated media. He proposed that it's a lot easier to create engaging work--or at least the type of things that spread virally--when not trying to hawk something.

Peretti himself drew national attention in 2001, when he took Nike up on an offer to customize sneakers. Then a grad student at MIT, Peretti asked that the word "sweatshop" appear on the footwear; Nike refused, sparking a widely publicized e-mail exchange that eventually landed Peretti on NBC's "Today" show.

Even Peretti, a partner at the Huffington Post, acknowledges that it's easier to capture people's interest to make a point--at least a point other than, "Buy this." "It's a lot harder," he said, "to do it for a product."