Joanna Shields of Bebo is quoted in that article as saying "As more and more interesting content from major media brands becomes available ..."
REALLY? I've got 1,000 channels and find it extremely difficult to find anything interesting to watch. There're gobs and gobs of stultifying treacle and palaver, but very little that qualifies as 'interesting.' And there sure doesn't seem, ever, to be 'more and more' of it. Rather, it seems there's ever less and less spread thinner and thinner and reheated, rehashed and re-served. In the same article we're told Tom Green is a "professional." REALLY? His comedy bores me. "Ask a Ninja" is funnier as is "Unleashed" and many other "amateur" internet programs. So, maybe Tom Green is the amateur and the creators of those shows are the "professionals." Yeah, that's it. You and me, we are the "professionals." Whether you consider yourself a "content creator" or "producer" or "videographer" or "vlogger" or any other name that describes what you do making videos for online consumption, you are a "professional" if you want to be. And here's how: "Professional" as we use it today is a co-opted, bastardized term, roughly meaning "expert" or "someone who gets paid for something." Thus, you are a "professional clown" if you get paid for being a clown, much like the "anchors" on your nightly network news program. And, if everyone you know calls you an "ass," then you're a "professional ass" because you're really expert at it. Originally, to be a professional, one needed to be a member of the "learned arts," namely divinity, law, and medicine. And for a long time after that, a professional was anyone who passed a rigorous qualifying exam of mental skill. Thus, if you were a doctor, lawyer, CPA, engineer, or actuary, you were a professional, but you couldn't be a "professional garbage man." It was a status designation. But that's all changed now. You're a "professional" at what you get paid for. Thus, Tiger Woods is a "professional golfer" because he gets paid to golf and a NYC sanitation worker is a "professional sanitation engineer." And if you have ever made $.01 from blip.tv or any other revenue sharing video site or you're just really good at it (and aren't we all?) then you're a "professional ________" whatever you want to call it. However you fill in that blank, I hope you don't fill in "content creator." That term is impersonal and abstract. We're artists, storytellers, diarists, filmmakers, journalists, videographers, photographers, what have you. "Content creator" suggests some awful bladder hooked up to hoses, ingesting material and extruding "content." --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Sull <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > i agree with the opposing perspectives in this thread.... > what also came to mind is that as soon as life's catastrophic events > occur, suddenly it will be realized again the power of the so-called > user-gen content. > user-gen does not HAVE to mean teens expressing and "working" their > personalities to each other on youtube. > user-gen does not have to mean silly prank videos. > user-gen does not have to mean strip-tease or dancing or ANYTHING in > front of a damn immobile webcam. > > user-gen CAN be citizen journalism and art. > > Let's not forget... and if needed, remind the dimwits and > story-fabricators in the world. show them! > > Sull > > On Nov 20, 2007 6:37 PM, Kenya Allmond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Web Video: Move Over, Amateurs > > > > "As more professionally produced content finds a home online, > > user-generated video becomes less alluring to viewers—and advertisers" > > > > > > > > http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071119_7018 31.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories > > > > > > > > http://tinyurl.com/2mac2l > > > > > > > > Has anyone ever heard of VideoEgg and ManiaTV? Did BusinessWeek try to interview executives from known online video outlets? > > . . . > > Kenya Allmond > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://kenya.allmond.us > > http://kenya.allmond.us/vlog > > VM/F 202-478-0490 > > > > To thine own self be true. > > > > > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________________________________ ______________ > > Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. > > Make Yahoo! your homepage. > > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > >
