Amateur is not below professional. It’s just another way of doing [media]. The root of the word amateur is love, and someone who does something for love is an amateur. Someone who does something to pay the bills is a professional. The amateurs have [more integrity than] the professionals. If you’re an amateur you have less conflict of interest and less reason not to tell your truth than if you have to pay the bills and please somebody else.
I’m not a Dave Winer fan, but I must say I love this quote. It exemplifies all that is great with the independent web. I’m not saying that I totally agree with the fact that professionals will have less integrity due to having to pay the bills, but it’s nice when you don’t have to worry and you can speak freely. That’s the joy of writing at Oreo CEO, no ads, no comments and really no caring if people visit or not.
We are starting our slow push into new forms of media to portray our content (eg. video and sound) and looking at how everything else is done around our Network, should our audience expect professional grade quality video production? In a sense you could say that our videos are very amateur. If you have seen any of our dance videos you now it’s just us being impromptu in front of our cameras. No special lighting or equipment. It’s simply us being us.
So does that lessen the value of what we have created or does it increase the value of the Network because we are connecting with our audience in new ways?
*And no not all amateurs are honest or even intelligent. I just liked that title.
Originally posted on May 8, 2006 @ 2:14 pm