 How can you encourage users to generate content?
jeromec: I'm going to approach this from another side, and ask you what value should I as a user hope to gain from shouldigetthebook.com? I kind of see what you are driving at, but I view your site's potential and possibly its purpose differently. On the surface you are saying your site will answer that question of needing to buy the book, but does it really need answering? Enough to keep users drawn to your site? One might argue that in this day with all the connectivity and info online there is no course that couldn't be passed without buying the book, unless the professor was a stickler for the exact material in question, and even then networking with other students could assuage the need.I think the question now becomes more philosophical. What do I want out of the course? Just a passing grade or something I can look back on and reference? When viewed that way your site can be about more than just answering that single, quite subjective, question. What I would do is try to foster discussion about the course. Let's say I want to take an art class. I go to shouldigetthebook.com and see nothing there, but I can leave an email to be notified of others inquiring and/or commenting on the same class. Chances are there would be some good discussion we could have. That's the kind of content you could foster on your site, and users would contribute because it's of interest to them. Eventually users could certainly answer the question of whether or not the course book is needed, but there is so much more that the question seems almost incidental.