On the Web, Amateurs Rivaling Professionals

This is definitely something for job seekers to think about in preparing for your next career move. - Dan.

From the Wall Street Journal | Oct 28, 2009

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  By MARK PENN

  
  

With E. Kinney Zalesne

This is the age of the amafessional, when amateurs are rivaling
professionals in opportunity, talent and the ability to produce quality
work. It's happening in virtually every field. In areas ranging from
communications to medicine to simply making things with your hands,
amafessionals are gaining in numbers and the ability to market their
services.

Struggling amateurs used to want to become stars, and of course some
still do, but this new phenomenon is different. Millions are
participating just for the fun and challenge of it--almost like running
in a marathon. "Amafessionals" include both the amateur/professional
hybrid and pajama professionals, who often work at home rather than the
studio or the office.

The last time we looked at blogging
industry sources pointed to 452,000 bloggers who received primary pay
for their services. But those sources also indicated that there was a
universe of 20 million total bloggers - most doing it totally for the
joy of it, with no compensation at all.

Without a doubt, these 20 million bloggers have shaken the
profession of journalism to its core, especially with the rise of
all-online publications. Their collective power and influence was
recently recognized in the publication of FTC rules governing their
behavior, adding in effect a set of standards to be followed by the amateurs.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times
lamented that the "shuttering of Gourmet [magazine] reminds us that in
a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant
pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more
resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime
of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the
bottom up."

But blogging is just the tip of the amafessional iceberg. Etsy - a site where people sell what they make - has registered nearly 200,000 sellers, and sales more than doubled in a year,
all from people making arts and crafts. Here you will find $35 art
works, $10 hand-made gloves, and $5 earrings, most of which are made by
amafessionals who for the first time can go to a broader marketplace
with the goods they make but could never get to market before the
Internet opened it up.

MySpace music is expanding as amafessional bands can place their content and their songs right next to the big names. Five million artists, bands and record labels have registered with the site
- or about 15% of the total active music participants. Shows like
"American Idol" troll amateur markets to find the next professionals.
These new sites, by contrast, have more modest goals: allowing amateurs
to place their creations online and be heard by their friends, family
and small groups of fans.

The trends are similar in the publishing world. On-demand publishing
has created new low-cost alternatives for people to get their
manuscripts published. While big-name houses are always looking for
that next Julia Child or J.K. Rowling - amateurs who cross over and
become bestselling authors- now, many others can enter the marketplace
by getting their books self-published for lower and lower investments.
In 2008, nearly 480,000 books were published or distributed in the United States,
up from close to 375,000 in 2007. In 2008, Author Solutions, which is
based in Bloomington, Ind., and operates iUniverse as well as other
print-on-demand imprints including AuthorHouse and Wordclay, published 13,000 titles, up 12 percent from the previous year. On-demand publisher Lulu.com has churned out 236,000 paperbacks since it opened in 2002.

With the growing interest in e-readers, amateur publishing can
become as powerful as blogging. No presses are required for purely
electronic publishing, and over time, this new distribution system will
have as-yet-unknown effects on the traditional publishing world. One of
the most successful direct-to-consumer books actually came out years
ago: "Chicken Soup for the Soul" sold over 2 million copies from its self-published origins in 1993 while the tools for all this were still in their infancy.

Similarly, advertising faces some of the same pressures from the
amafessionals, as low-cost programs give consumers an increasing
ability to turn out professional-looking material at costs a fraction
of what they were. Vice President Al Gore, in his 2000 presidential
race, was perhaps the first to send video cameras to people to make
their own ads on his behalf. Not much was usable then, but that is
changing, as companies hold broader contests for content.

No profession these days is immune from this trend. One of the
microtrends I identified two years ago was the DIYD. or do-it-yourself
doctor, who arrives at the doctor's office complete with the diagnosis
and list of drugs that need to be prescribed. With the increase in
drugs being released over the counter, and the growth of Internet
pharmacies where you relay your symptoms over the Internet, more and
more people are becoming DIYDs and simply buying what they think they
need at the pharmacy.

Amafessionalism is no small movement. In marketplace after
marketplace, these people are providing trained and working
professionals with some very fair - and sometimes unfair - competition.
They are upending traditional business models in everything from
fashion to advertising. And they are giving outlets to the creative
passions of millions, creating huge new web opportunities to those who
want to sell tools to the amafessionals, who are uniquely willing to
spend time and money on our passions. Every toy soldier painted in a
hobbyist's garage now can have an Internet display case and potential
home.

In recent years we've experienced the growth of the professional class
as the nature of work and American aspirations have shifted. But now
come the amafessionals, who could produce even greater growth.

Corrections & Amplifications:

Statistics by Technorati indicated there are about 20 million
bloggers that blog -- mostly for leisure. A previous version of this
article stated the number as 1.7 million.