You are a Fad

CNNMoney takes a look at the Time person of the year, You. Its seems you might be a fad.

From the article:

"With everyone with a computer and camera now having the ability to try and become the next Steven Spielberg or Maureen Dowd, it's hard to imagine how there won't eventually be a backlash against ubiquitous user-generated video clips, blogs and the like.

So having a video on YouTube that gets 500,000 clicks is great for the ego. But it's financially worthless unless you can get people to pay to watch it or sell advertising against it.

Mark Stevens, chief executive officer of MSCO, a global marketing firm based in White Plains, New York, said that user-generated contests are nothing more than a marketing gimmick. He doesn't believe that companies or Madison Avenue are really losing control of their marketing to the average consumer.

But let's not rush to proclaim "You" the next big thing in media. Just because "You" can create a commercial or a two-minute comedy sketch and easily post it online, doesn't mean that "You" will dominate the media and marketing landscape in the years to come.

Only a handful of user-generated ideas will be successful and even then, odds are that they are going to be financial windfalls for large advertisers as well as the big media companies that own the popular user-generated sites."

Blair at the Thinkblog pointed out a similar idea:

"Or is this whole UGC trend actually providing greater opportunities for frustrated agency talent to strut their stuff? It doesn’t appear that the Average Joe’s of the world are winning these competitions. “Native agency talent” or players from small and independent shops seem to be responsible for a significant percentage of these so-called user submissions."