" 'This is the era of engagement,' Ms. Huffington said, then quoted musician Will.i.am's assessment of the news climate, where consumers used to get news on the couch, and are now getting news on a 'galloping horse.'

To demonstrate the rise of user-generated content, Ms. Huffington said that more video was uploaded to YouTube in the last two months than if the major networks had created original content every minute of every day since 1948. She urged advertisers and media outlets to recognize that the abundance of user-generated content means content organizations need to step out of the center of the news universe and invite users into the news-gathering process — a model her own site, the Huffington Post, has grown up on. "