lola
Anchor Cove Jr. Resident
Posts: 23
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Post by lola on Jul 18, 2007 10:55:31 GMT -5
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Post by milowent on Jul 18, 2007 12:24:07 GMT -5
excellent find, lola, i cannot resist posting the text here with some commentary: Net's Amateur Hour Lasted About That LongBy Andrew Wallenstein [Milo adds: i recognize this name. i don't think he's written about lonelygirl15.com particularly, but about youtube before. Apparently he is also an NPR commentator.]July 18, 2007 Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of user-generated content as a phenomenon. There was a time not that long ago when UGC seemed poised to topple Hollywood, as if anyone with a video camera and a Web connection was deemed a budding Steven Spielberg. But ask yourself this: When was the last time an amateur viral video actually reached viral status? [I would say "Obama Girl" maybe from last month, not sure how professional that is.]Remember Lonelygirl15, the Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments and Ask a Ninja? It's not easy to forget the Web darlings of yesteryear because few homemade videos have taken their place. Although the soda has long fizzled from those carbonated geysers, these videos still are regarded as the standard bearers for UGC, which is telling. This past week, there were a few developments that amounted to multiple nails getting pounded into UGC's coffin. Look at the fate of leading viral outposts like Break.com, which Lionsgate took an unspecified stake in July 11, or Grouper, which Sony Corp. acquired and rebranded this week as Crackle with a new arm for in-house original content creation. These sites saw their financial future in strapping on the feedbag of professional studio product, not the free buffet that is UGC. [Have Break.com and Grouper ever been the source of real viral video? Not that I am aware of. In fact, I am only vaguely familiar with the existence of these sites. According to alexa.com, grouper is somewhere in the 3000s of top websites. Break.com is up around 300 something (higher than i woulda though really). But youtube is still #4, which is huge.] Or look at the July 12 launch of 60Frames Entertainment, a venture dedicated to linking professional content creators with online opportunities linked to advertising and syndication. Its new CEO is Brett Weinstein, the former digital chief at UTA, where he made his mark scouring the Internet for new talent, even setting up a channel on Veoh Networks for just that purpose. The fruits of those efforts have yet to be made apparent. [Yeah, what fruits? UTA's online division was only started in October 2006, in the wake of lonelygirl15mania. The client list at utaonline.com does include the askaninja people and Big Fantastic (the SH7F and PQ guys), but at least the former acheived success prior to signing.]Now that the bloom is off the rose of amateur online video, what might have struck millions as a novelty last year doesn't feel as fresh anymore. Videos that once commanded the attention of thousands or millions likely will just be sampled by hundreds. [Throughout this article he keeps talking about amateur online video without referencing youtube in particular. Changes in youtube may be mostly to blame for this.]The main reason the UGC boom went bust so quickly is that advertisers never embraced it. (Wha?? UGC viral videos are not going to be ad-supported by defintion. The lack of viral video hits doesn't mean people aren't still trying to make them. But at youtube, the commercial stuff seems to be dominating the homemade entries.) Few brands are going to associate their products with one-off sensations in the Wild West of the Internet. Ask yourself what was the most viral online video that graced your monitor in past months? The only candidate that comes to mind is "The Landlord," Will Ferrell's hilarious foray into online video via new site FunnyorDie.com. "Landlord" couldn't offer a bigger example of how the tide has turned away from the amateurs to the same forces that dominate film and television. On a volume basis, UGC may well outnumber its professional counterpart. But while more people are consuming online video -- three out of four Internet users did so in May, according to new data from comScore Video Metrix -- they likely are consuming infinitely more videos, as opposed to gravitating to a select few. What we didn't understand about UGC is that it usually isn't entertainment, but communication. The average Joe isn't trying to outdo JibJab; he is simply expressing himself to his friends via video. [The average joe perhaps, but there are tons of amateurs who are trying to entertain us. And most people don't just "express" themselves to their friends via youtube vlogs, its for their friends AND whatever public they can interest. People generally want their videos to be watched.]The paucity of Internet-bred hits has taught us something obvious: Talent isn't as pervasive as it might seem. Although so-called new-media experts fell in love with the notion that the Hollywood elite would have the playing field leveled by the consumers they so poorly serve, that hasn't happened. [This paragraph has to be here solely to play to the hollywood reporter's audience of entetainment industry types. There is no shortage of talent -- there may be a shortage of ambition and drive, but not talent. Katers17 half-heartedly lurched herself into youtube fame; it wasn't intentional at all, and always very part-time. This "talent" scarcity idea is also what drives American Idol -- as if there are only a few people who can sing pop hits. When, in fact, many musical artist hit the big time with little talent, but for some reason (the right hook, the right lyric, the right looks, or simply the right time) they make it.]In retrospect, 2006 feels less like a changing of the guard and more like a brief moment when Hollywood and Madison Avenue were caught flat-footed by the opportunities for Internet distribution and regular folks stepped into the vacuum. But a year later, UGC has slunk back to obscurity. UGC hasn't left the Internet, but it isn't as popular as it was when it had the playground to itself. [Again, this seems to be statement really about how youtube has been changing.] |
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lola
Anchor Cove Jr. Resident
Posts: 23
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Post by lola on Jul 18, 2007 12:43:07 GMT -5
In the imortal words of somebody "you gotta have a gimmick!" (Mama Rose?)
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