The iPod might be a (theoretically) closed system in terms of application development, but it's always been open in terms of the content you put on it. After all, your entire collection of CDs and digital photos can happily sit on there. But there hasn't been much talk about putting other people's multimedia gubbins on it.
A friend just sent me a link to Mogopop, which claims to make that easier. The idea is you upload your photos, video clips, music and text, and then they're combined into a single file, which other users can then download.
"A Mogopop project can be anything from a profile of a band, to a guide to your favorite pizza places, to a talking language translation," says the site. They all sound more appealing than my initial expectation, which was that it'd be stuffed with people's holiday photos set to music. Although I'm sure there's some of that too.
Categories include Comedy, Sports, Tours & Travel, Education and Food & Drink. I'm assuming Mogopop could run into similar copyright challenges as YouTube has done if everyone starts uploading commercial music as part of their projects.
The success of Mogopop will obviously depend on there being enough people creating the content for others to download. I wonder if the site could broaden its remit too, to include other mobile devices, for example other personal video players, PSPs and mobile phones.
Also, imagine if Apple got involved in this kind of idea, working with Mogopop, another partner or off its own back to offer user-generated content through iTunes. I guess these are essentially video podcasts, which anyone can register with iTunes to offer, just made more user-friendly to actually create.