Why isn’t consumer-generated-media better than it is?

I am very much of two minds about the rush to embrace consumer-generated-media. I love the inclusiveness of it, but to be honest, the quality makes me cringe.

Note the difference between media and content. Content like product reviews is often quite insightful. At the very least, it's informative about what consumers think of your brand, products, and services. But when they try to turn it into video ... yikes!

While it admittedly takes training to speak well and write well, most people "practice" these skills on a lifelong basis. Far fewer of us find ourselves running video cameras every day. And those that do often know little about lighting, pacing, audio noise removal, and so on (I myself am one of "those").

Embracing consumers is good; embracing their crummy videos is not so good in my view. Perhaps we just have to live with a learning curve here.