In the old days (read: as late as in the beginning of this year) it was called “15 minutes of fame” when someone got a short-term hit of some kind in TV or Radio. With the latest hit (or what-ever you should call web sites like MySpace, YouTube, Google Video and many more) I guess we have to change that expression to “15 megabytes of fame”.

In the old days you had to do something unusual, make a reporter interested in your “project” and wait for the late TV news to have people see you on TV. Today anyone can broadcast their ideas, project or crazy stuff as they like because all you need is a camera, a video editing software (free or trial software will do just fine) and a crazy idea. The actual publishing of the video is the easy part nowadays with all picture and video sharing communities all over Internet.

This new trend with video publishing can of course also be used by companies as a compliment to ordinary advertising campaigns. A company can easily (and at pretty low cost) produce a short, funny and crazy video with some kind of hidden ad. This has already been done several times this year and I guess we will see it even more in the future. The upside of this is that ads should be funnier to watch, but the downside is that it will be harder to see the difference between ads and home-made projects.

I don’t think the trend with video and picture sharing communities will stop in the near future because people have always wanted fame and will so in the future too. We simply just have to relax and enjoy all the fun stuff published. Just don’t believe everything you find on the Internet…..

you're so right. it was used a lot in the elections in the US this year, especially on the Democratic side. and for bands, the definition of EPK (electronic press kit) just got a whole lot less focused. everything's a freakin' ad, isn't it. my soul kind of hurts.