Contest news: Sports Illustrated and Gilette have teamd up for a mashup video contest. Sports Illustrated provides a bunch of high def video clips of its swimsuit models, plus a very slick, but simple video editing software based on easy drag/drop Ajax commands. Go here to start mashing. Once you finish your mashup video, which you can synch with basic background music, you can then embed the video in your blog, FaceBook page, or send the link to others. The contest site is here.
Analysis: I’m finishing an article on user-generated content and mashups (that I hope to share soon). I’ve been canvassing some of these mashup contests, and the video tools for the SI contest are quite nice and user-friendly. The shell looks like your basic iMovie or Moviemaker page, but with fewer editing options. The video quality is so high, though, and the models so beautiful, that anyone will be able to put together a cool video.
I think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg with mainstream media attempting to cultivate user-generated content. The lines between media content and user-generated content will get blurred.
Sports Illustrated also has a YouTube channel with its own swimsuit videos for YouTube.
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