Is there a 2.0 creativity sap?

I was looking for comedic inspiration on YouTube last night and it struck me that it could be renamed CatShow.com. The 'most viewed' tab is always chock full of people doing stupid things with their cats at home. Or clips from the news. In other words, boring, uncreative videos.

I'm guilty, too. I put up a video last year of my cat playing fetch to show off his skeelz to my parents back in the US. Admission made.

But this brought me to ponder the question - now that 2.0 has been around for awhile, are we starting to experience a creativity sap? Do web-philes only have so many creative ideas in them, and have already used them up during the first few years of the 2.0 revolution? I feel as if I haven't seen many creative bits of content lately on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. But I'm only talking about content, not about startup business ideas, where creativity has abounded in recent months, potentially as people have lost their 'real' jobs and gone off to start the company they've spent years imagining. One great source of this type of inspiration is KillerStartups.

I know that in PR, when things get really busy and I'm asked to churn out sometimes ridiculous amounts of content in the form of snappy, sharp writing, in short spaces of time, my 'snappiness' gets seriously sapped.

Or maybe it's just the winter doldrums.

If I'm wrong, please prove it to me by posting comments of the most creative content you've seen in awhile. Would love to see it. Would love to LMAO at something today.

How social media is like tracks in snow

There is something about snow that makes you reflective. Right now I'm reflecting on how snow is like social media. Walking to the corner store to get a diet coke today was an unusually voyeuristic experience. Seeing the tracks left in fresh snow, I could tell which of my neighbours went out today; who'd used their car. I could see who'd been walking a dog; even what size the dog was. The high heel shoe imprint next to tiny dog paw prints leaves a very different impression of its owner than the big chunky boot imprint next to a huge paw print.

And so, it leads to my (very reflective) thesis that snow is like social media. A tool like Twitter is the ultimate stalker solution, where one leaves tracks that tell a lot about our lives and our personalities. It wasn't until I started following an A-list Hollywood celeb that I realised the extent of it. I'm in wintry Birmingham (the uncoolest place in Britain, or so people believe), spending a large portion of my day talking to journalists, PRs and builders (an odd mix, I know). She spends her day sunning herself next to her pool in LA, hanging with other A-listers and working with Hollywood's most accomplished directors. And yet, here we meet, on Twitter, and I know what her daily personal response is to news stories, I know about how her husband wants to kill the neighbour (well, not really) and all sorts of personal stuff about their lives.

So what does it all mean? Is it good or bad? I think it remains to be seen. I'm not likely to attract real stalkers so I feel pretty safe using Twitter (mainly for business, when I'm not using it to track celebs). I keep my Facebook profile as secure from random viewers as possible and have turned off its wider web search capability. But for some, the stakes of using social media are presumably much higher. I don't know if I'd be so open about it if I was "famous." And yet the openness of Twitter is its real appeal, so without that willingness, the tool would be much less interesting. Still, I don't know if I'd want to be leaving that many tracks in snow (to neatly wrap up my analogy) if I needed to use a bodyguard to get to the nearest shop. Would you?

Doodle 4 Google... but only if you're in the 50 states

Google has announced its Doodle 4 Google contest, whereby US students grades K-12 can submit drawings for a unique Google logo on the theme 'What I wish for the world' and compete for a sizable college scholarship. Cynically speaking I always love an idea that forces people to design stuff for you for free, and make your logo more interesting - plus this has a 'feel-good' ring to it - but hang on a minute, did you say US students only?

If the aim of this contest is, let's face it, to make a US-based brand look good (and world-wise), why not open it up to students all over the world? Yes, the US is on the brink of change with a new administration, but globalisation is increasingly resulting in the outcome that we are in this together. People all over the world, not just in the States, feel the 'on the brink of something' feeling. I wish Google had done the more daring thing and flexed its international muscles with this contest. Sure, it would be an admin nightmare, but surely the brainpower at Google can wrap its head around that. It would have been way more powerful both in PR value, as well as its ability to demonstrate a truly worldwide connection.