Ad vet and writer George Parker, mediating a panel at the PSFK trend conference in New York, said that CGM is not a strategy. He especially took note of the two biggies, YouTube (GOOG) and MySpace (NWS-A), which have been having trouble generating ad revenue.
At a kugel, they quoted Scott Witt talking about CGM, he "... equated the phenomenon to 'skinny jeans,' i.e. a forgettable fad."
Parker also added, concerning the recent saturation of Fox advertising and Wired's unfocused advertising, as being bad practices.
Even though Rupert Murdoch claims that MySpace is generating $25 million a month in advertising, the bottom line seems to be how effective that advertising is for companies. Simply providing a plethora of unrelated content won't do it anymore, which is what the CGM sites represent.
George Parker
This is what traditional media knows and thinks like though: Reaching "mass" audiences, something that in reality no longer exists. You can't call what MySpace or YouTube is "mass," as people use the various profiles and uploads more like individual TV channels, rather than like they would sitting down and watching the same TV show.
Another intesting thing said by Scott Witt was that within 500 days he believed that some advertising agencies will start to create content, or media-driven profit centers. This is something I think will probably happen, and is in the process of happening.
I think they will have to do this as people are already talking about bypassing agencies altogether.
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