Dragon's Den, Gold Rush! and ItsYourShow

What do the Dragon's Den, Gold Rush! and ItsYourShowTV.com have incommon? They are all trying to capitalize on user generated content - check. They all have a "cutting edge" delivery scheme - check. They are all giving away money - bingo.

Sure Gold Rush hails from Survivor, which has a million dollar cash prize, so you can see that one easily.

Dragons Den is a little more involved - complete with its own Viral Video ( al la Agency's Subway pitch but much, much more effective.)

From the site:

"Welcome to the Dragons' Den where entrepreneurs pitch the Dragons (five Canadian business moguls) for investment. Watch as they try to convince the Dragons to part with their cash or simply fall apart and crash."

Too small of a target audiance, too esoteric?

No worries about that with NBC's ItsYourShow.com.

From the site:

We're here to help push the viral video world to the next level. You guys are great at creating and have inspired us to step up our game�(sic - all) What if we throw down challenges and give out cash for inspiration? What if we give you guys music, video clips, sound effects and theme songs? Well we�re doing it! We know you like to mix it up so we're giving out some ingredients. Now we�re gonna sit back and watch the madness.

Challenges: Make ALL the material you supply (music too) original. We cannot run stuff on our site or NBC that isn't yours or from our toolkits. As the site progresses there will be more and more to use. Also, make sure all the people in the videos have given their permission. You can't chase down some random person, film them and then send it to us. They have to be down with it. We know it�s harsh but this is the big time!

Hunt around: You don't have to make a video... you can just critique. Hate something? Love a video? Whatever, this is your site and we ARE listening. Rules stay the same but the site can always change. After all this is YOUR SHOW."

They should pay readers $1,000 for suffering through that copy.