At a recent conference about Social Media discusses the pros and cons of User-Generated Content. As we all know, Zooppa is a community for creatives to learn and grow from each other. Freelancers have been around forever, but now we have a place to talk and form our own “outcast community”, so to speak. The fact is, you have to spend years interning shuffling papers or other meaningless stuff and never even get a hand in design unless your sleeping with the art director. Anyway, I’ll shut up and let you enjoy the fray we’ve created: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQu0292dftA

Oh ya, I’d agree… i think “spec work” is dangerous.
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. (for those of you who don’t know what ‘spec work’ is, it’s basically what we do here on Zooppa. It means “Speculative”. We create something for a client without any promise of payment. The client basically gets a whole bunch of great work for really cheap, most of us don’t even get paid)
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. the ONLY time I do spec work is for Zooppa… and I do it because I enjoy it and it’s fun… it’s a contest, it’s an adrenaline rush, it’s a game… . ... If a real-life client in the real-world asked me to do spec-work….. well… No freakin’ way…. why would I waste my time and skills creating something that i probably won’t get paid for.
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. In all honesty, these UGC sites are helping shift the ad-industry, but they aren’t the NEW form of advertising. It clearly has it’s shortcomings and companies will soon realize it. Not only that, but it’s just too cheap.
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. $2500 may be a lot of money to some of the people on here. “oh wow, if i make a video I can win $2500!!! WOW!!! ”
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. In the of advertising, $2500 is something you blow your nose in. The national average cost to produce a 30-second video for television is $222,000….
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. So…. Come to Zooppa, spend $20k for 50 “okay” ads… maybe 1 or 2 great ones….. Or… Spend $200k and get an amazing ad that is exactly what you wanted…
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. Zooppa fulfills a demand by consumers (companies).... cheap videos…..... some companies want quantity and not quality.
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. Regardless, I don’t see “spec work” or sites like zooppa going away… There are too many smaller companies that find value in UGC.. and too many film students and graphic designers that need more work…

haha, I just thought of this line of dialogue that makes this even more funny.
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. Consider the following scenario,
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.You’re sitting at your desk and your phone rings. You answer it and on the other line is a business person from XYZ company.
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. He says, “I want you to make something for me.”
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.You reply, “okay”
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.He continues, ” I want you to make something for me. Something really great! And I want you to make it for FREE… yup.. i won’t pay you anything for your hard work… but if I really like it, then I’ll pay you a fraction of what it’s worth…. Sound good?? Oh.. and by the way, the work has to be submitted before this date and this piece of paper is all you have to base your work on…. make it good!! ”
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: )

Neither of you have a clear picture of what is going on, do you? Do you think Zoopa is synonymous to an ad agency? A small hand full of people on zoopa are simi-professional hoping for that “big shot”.Others want to be professional yet have not gathered the experience yet to be even simi-professional. Then there is the majority here that are just the average Joe-Blow with an interest in art and video as a hobby.The voting system is by far the worst i have ever seen. Friends and family will vote for their friends and family regardless of the quality of the work. Add to the mix the usual ‘cry baby’s’ and those that ‘love to control others’ and you have quite a social forum eh? Which happens to be Zooopas motto. “Advertising Goes Social”. I suggest relax. Create your work. And try to have some fun with it. The fix is in, The votes are a free for all and maybe one person in a thousand will get that ‘big shot’. Maybe. catahoula

Actually, spec work has been around for many years, except you have no chance of getting paid…it’s called “Internships”...and you don’t do any creative…shuffle papers and blowjobs. Actually, the Super Bowl Doritos ad was done as “spec” work and it cost less than $2000 to make (and from a small town in Indiana by two unemployed guys)...and beat ALL the big ad agencies. There’s a paradigm shift going on as you said, but what places like Zooppa is finding out is that “creative” comes from an individual and not Madison Ave. So, I disagree PT. I’ve been working with Ad Agencies for many years, and frankly, it’s all smoke and mirrors. Granted, some “spec sites” are shit because they focus on the ads and not the community. But Zooppa is the only one that we can vote on the winner so “Power to the People!”

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Actually, spec work has been around for many years, except you have no chance of getting paid…it’s called “Internships”...and you don’t do any creative…shuffle papers and blowjobs. Actually, the Super Bowl Doritos ad was done as “spec” work and it cost less than $2000 to make (and from a small town in Indiana by two unemployed guys)...and beat ALL the big ad agencies. There’s a paradigm shift going on as you said, but what places like Zooppa is finding out is that “creative” comes from an individual and not Madison Ave. So, I disagree PT. I’ve been working with Ad Agencies for many years, and frankly, it’s all smoke and mirrors. Granted, some “spec sites” are shit because they focus on the ads and not the community. But Zooppa is the only one that we can vote on the winner so “Power to the People!”