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Feeding The Self-Generated Content Beast

If I were half clever, a tad nerdy, unable to sit still for long periods and 20ish or 30ish, I'd be doing exactly what Joel Moss Levinson and Matt of "Where-The-Hell-Is-Matt" fame are doing: Exploiting the seemingly insatiable maw of marketers' consumer-generated-content beast for fun and profit.

A Times Section A front-pager today tells the tale of Joel, an itinerant jobholder and college dropout -- he majored in medieval weaponry for a few semesters at George Washington University -- who is making a tidy living by winning contests such as one sponsored by Klondike bars for which he filmed himself singing in the Arctic. That effort alone garnered $100,000. Joel has won 10 other jousts of wit and whimsy, albeit for lesser booty. The American National CattleWomen, for instance, coughed up an iPod.

"It's so great to have a license to be an idiot," says Joel.

Meanwhile foot-loose Matt continues to high-step his way around the world courtesy of Stride Gum. The self-described 32-year-old "deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames" is apparently expanding his horizons. Just recently, according to his blog , he exchanged "holy smokes, it's you" greetings with smooth-jazz sax man Kenny G on a first-class plane ride to Toyko and got himself a Garmin GPS just for showing up at a Google event in New York City

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Read the whole story at The New York Times »

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