It's not You, It's Me.

It’s been more than a month since Time Magazine declared “You” as the Person of the Year. (I would have voted for runners-up Hugo, Mahmoud, OR Kim, being of the camp that considers foreign leaders to be way more fascinating than the Average Joe of the U.S. of A. But that’s just me.)

In their typically dramatic way, they said that 2006 was not about “conflict or great men,” but rather

…a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

I’m getting a little misty.

Pretty much everyone seemed all gung-ho about Web 2.0, with all its contingency, finally getting some credit. But there's a fine line between recognition and hype, and that gray line in between we'll call value.

Finally, someone has questioned the legitimacy – not of the selection of "You", but rather the value. Paul R. La Monica at CNNMoney.com asks: What’s the point?

Having a video on YouTube that gets 500,000 clicks is great for the ego. But it's financially worthless unless you can get people to pay to watch it or sell advertising against it.

So, is it just a fad? Will interest in user-generated content gradually decline? I like how Stephen DiMarco, CMO of Compete, Inc., answers the question with a question. (So elusive and clever.)

At what point do we have social saturation when every person and every marketer tries to film every idea they've ever had? The best content will always rise to the top but there will be a ton that probably won't get covered and people may stop posting when it becomes evident that nobody is interested.

According to Derek Powazek and numerous other bloggers who are High on Life after the Time announcement, the variety and quality of USG is still so much better than what big media companies can churn out.

But crunch on this Dorito: Even though companies like Frito Lay, PepsiCo, and GM are sponsoring contests for user-generated commercials that will be aired during the 2007 Super Bowl, we find that even professed Bills fan and seemingly ‘average’ guy Gino Bona whose commercial will air on that fateful day is in fact the sales director of a marketing company in Portland, Maine.

Okay, once removed, but not by much.
(We suspect he might also be a distant cousin of Kevin Bacon.)