Hasta La Creative!

Newsweek is floating the idea that the heyday for consumer generated content has come and gone.

In short, the expert is back. The revival comes amid mounting demand for a more reliable, bankable Web. “People are beginning to recognize that the world is too dangerous a place for faulty information,” says Charlotte Beal, a consumer strategist for the Minneapolis-based research firm Iconoculture. Beal adds that choice fatigue and fear of bad advice are creating a “perfect storm of demand for expert information.”

“The wisdom of the crowds has peaked,” says Calacanis. “Web 3.0 is taking what we’ve built in Web 2.0—the wisdom of the crowds—and putting an editorial layer on it of truly talented, compensated people to make the product more trusted and refined.”

Did he really need to say Web 3.0? I suppose he did. But I’m so not ready for it. Although, I am more than ready for better content from trusted sources.

Just because one’s cell phone shoots video doesn’t mean the person operating the device has the faintest clue about building an audience.

Lindsay Campbell, formerly of Wallstrip, has been charging around Austin this week with her camera crew in tow. Her goal? To better understand the mind of an SXSW attendee.

Her new show, which is backed by CBS, is called Moblogic. It’s a news, culture and politics program.

New Tee Vee has several posts about quarterlife’s network debut and the fallout from said TV event.

In a development that could kill the network dreams of other fledgling web series, quarterlife’s premiere on NBC bombed. TV by the Numbers paints the not-so-pretty picture: quarterlife came in last place in its time slot, with a mere 3.86 million viewers. An ABC Primetime news special won the hour with 7.64 million viewers, and even the wait-wasn’t-that-canceled Jericho did way better, attracting 6.9 million people.

Our own Liz Gannes spoke with quarterlife creator Marshall Herskovitz at the Harvard Business School Entertainment and Media Conference today. In a nice moment of candor, even Herskovitz admitted that the show “bombed” last night, and offered up some interesting commentary.

Herskovitz said “We shouldn’t have been on a network to begin with. Our show, probably if it was going to TV should have been on a cable network, and that’s probably where we’re going to end up.”

He’s correct. After one episode on NBC, the show is now headed to Bravo.

The New York Times looks at the importance of storytelling in the workplace.

Of all the repetitive, mind-numbing jobs in the late 19th century, cigar-rolling was special.

Unlike sewing clothes, mining coal or forging steel, it was blessedly quiet. And thus cigar workers, whether in Chicago or Havana, were the first ones in their time who managed to introduce that vital commodity — distraction — onto the work floor.

Using their own wages, and backed by a powerful union, they paid for a “reader” who sat in an elevated chair and began the morning with the news and political commentary. By the afternoon, he would usually have switched to a popular novel. The 100 or so rollers on the floor were his captive audience, listening as they worked.

Of course, there are countless new forms of storytelling that occupy our day in 2008. Which is what makes is so hard for advertising to break through the clutter. Unless, advertising is also compelling storytelling.

Shelly Lazarus, the CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, is speaking my language.

“Brands are more than checkbooks to develop content. Brands are cultural artifacts that have inherent story values. We see ourselves as being both in the entertainment business and the product business.”

But she loses me here:

“We can come up with a brand idea, but we can’t do programming. We wouldn’t start to even try.”

Why wouldn’t we try? In my opinion, we in the agency business need to do the work. It goes without saying that we’d partner with our friends in the production community to create advertainment, just like we do with advertising.

[via Ad Age]

Lexus Hybrid Living is an interesting content play by the luxury car brand. While many hybrid buyers are Birkenstock-wearing eco-number crunchers wanting to know all the pertinent facts and figures, Lexus appeals to another demo. The demo that says, “Hey, I’m rich. The least I could do is be responsible.” Of course, never before in history, has it been so easy to “act responsibly” while stroking a check.

The site doesn’t aim to sell cars, but to support the lifestyle. As such, it introduces and promotes key figures from green design like fashion design Linda Loudermilk and architect Michelle Kaufmann. The designers’ stories are told in video and text.

Lexus Hybrid Living also offers city guides for NYC, LA, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle, Phoenix and San Francisco.

The navigation is a bit hard to follow and I’d like the videos to benefit from “share this” functionality, but the content is right and well packaged.