SI’s Swimsuit Visitors Are a Bunch of Mash-Up-ers

Giving users the tools to manipulate and mash-up their own media has always been an iffy proposition. There usually is a gulf between how people say they want to “take control” of their media what they really have the patience or ambition to do online. And so we were curious about the response to SI.com’s Video Mash-Up feature in this year’s Swimsuit site. Users can pick up to four models and then edit together their own custom videos of the clips, even add transitions, filters and graphic overlays and audio. The interface is colorful but involved for a Web application. Surprisingly to us, SI.com tells us that more than 2300 videos have been produced by visitors so far. Perhaps more important is the audience for these user-generated short films. The top two videos have received 13,000 and 11,000 views respectively. When it comes UGC, the 80/20 rule applies. All you need is a core of ambitious media mavens to take the controls and produce the new content, but the audience for this material is multiples larger.