10.03.2006

Get Your 15 Megs of Fame

We know there are a ton of video sites now. You can find a sizable list of them at Catagoriz (scroll down and look for the "video" section). With all this free video hosting available what is to be made of the infamous "15 minutes of fame?" Does a reference on a video blog count? What if you just upload some video to YouTube or Vimeo? Does that count?

The original 15 minutes of fame came about when the opportunities to be seen far and wide via video were controlled by the television stations. But somewhere between Candid Camera and America's Funniest Home Videos this started to deteriorate. Now it's all but dead. Today we don't need TV for this...just ask the dance guy or the urban ninja.

If, in fact, the 15 minutes of fame are now dead does that mean we've entered the era of 15 megs of fame? For 15 megs you can get a video on any number of video hosting websites. If it's compelling enough, funny enough, weird enough, or some kind of "enough" we don't even know about yet...it will make the rounds of emails and conversations and could in time reach well into the millions of views.

For any organization that can harness the power of the 15 megs of fame, they'll have something truly valuable. The problem with the 15 minutes of fame was that it only lasted about that long. With the 15 megs of fame, however, it can continue to grow and gain online momentum over time. Whereas time was the enemy with the 15 minutes, time is your friend with the 15 megs. If it's true that everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame you can have mine. I'll take the 15 megs.

By the way, the winner from yesterday's free Starbucks offer was.....Chris from Voxacious. Congrats Chris! Just let me know when and where.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would argue that his phrase is truer than ever! When Warhol said it, 15 minutes was a hyperbole; fleeting fame probably lasted a day or two. But now with sites like YouTube, people really are famous for only 15 minutes.

Anonymous said...

15 megs of fame is already out of date:

http://www.15megsoffame.com/

Anonymous said...

thes summer i was on a party on a pretty impressive yacht in cannes - a friend knew a friend who new a guy who new a girl that had access ... so... many long legs and hey ... i have been to better parties - but of course you ask for the name of your host - the ultra rich owner of the ship.
and of course i googled his name the next day.
result: zero! nothing! nada!
i googled the name of the ship - ok - that you can find in the yacht spotters databases - owner unknown...

wow!

in times of omnipresent mobilephone paparazzi and the internet warhol's concept seems to be more outdated than i would have thought

anomymity is the new fame

Anonymous said...

Lorraine Twohill (Marketing Director Google Europe) said exactly the same thing at Picnic '06 in The Netherlands, Amsterdam, a week ago...

Anonymous said...

How much is the upgrade to 15 gigs of fame?