UGIS: Understanding the nature of user-generated information systems

People from around the world are bringing together a variety of information technologies—devices, services, applications, networks, and information—to create personal information systems. This emerging phenomenon is enabled by a convergence of inexpensive, powerful, and ubiquitous devices and applications connected through global networks, motivated by an open ideology and enacted by ‘prosuming’ users. This article examines the phenomenon of the user-generated information system (UGIS) to better understand its origins and thereby describe its nature. A formal definition of UGIS is developed, and its components described. A model of the ideological and technical forces that contribute to the changing role of the user as information system creator, and to the emergence of this capability and issues, is introduced. Implications for managers are discussed.