Flicking through this year’s Webby Awars winners, I’m a bit baffled by the people’s voice for the employment category. Yes, Monster’s new career site looks a lot better than it did. And yes, it’s tweaked some of its features. But no, what they’re doing is not exactly ‘new’.

I’d say VisualCV – one of the other nominees – comes much closer to actually innovating on the recruitment front. But as people and voices go, Monster probably got a fair share from its truckload of employees.

I gave 8tracks a big thumbs up in the music category (didn’t win), and I love IBM’s Wordle (won ‘best typography’; something I’m definitely going to use more often – see image below).

(photo silly chair monster by massdistraction on Flickr)

Now taking applications for a six-month post of “island caretaker”, starting 1st July 2009.

Soak up the sun, swim, snorkel, sail, and generally laze about for a living.  Requirements: you must be over 18, a fantastic and charismatic communicator, and speak and write English – so you can report your hard work via weekly blogs, photo diaries and video updates.

The successful candidate will be employed for 6 months. Pay: 150,000 $AU (about 100,000 U.S. dollars).  Secondary benefits: free airfares from your home country to tropical Hamilton Island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and a multi-million-dollar three-bedroom beach home – rent-free.

In its bid to boost Queensland’s $18 billion a year tourism industry, the northeastern Australian state is going to great lengths to stress that it’s a real job.

No need to tell hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts from all over the world: inundating the website that advertises the job, they managed to crash it for a day. It’s up and running again though, so you can visit it to submit a 60-second video explaining why you’re the ideal candidate. Think about it – you have until February 22nd to apply.

Fantastic piece of tourism marketing, if only for all the people sending in video’s and raving about the job. But also a great way to call out to potential candidates – and a shame not all work can be made this enticing.

Read more on Expatica (thanks to Meg for giving a shout).

(image the best job in the world by me)

But for industry professionals fearing empty cinemas, Upload Cinema comes to the rescue (albeit not in a way they’d envision). For its feature length programs in the Uitkijk cinema in Amsterdam, Upload Cinema relies solely on the web’s immense and freely accessible catalogue – not on Hollywood distributors.

And in true crowdsourcing fashion, the organisation asks potential visitors to submit films they think deserve a place on the big screen. This month’s edition (‘Yes, also we are list-addicts’) comprised the best web videos of 2008. ‘No theme, no rules: just the most outstanding, creative and crazy web videos produced.’

From over 200 entries, Upload Cinema selected 36. All of them were a feast for eyes and ears, with this Star Wars a cappella tribute baffling and cracking me up the most:

And one of my favourites, Bert & Ernie’s Gangsta Rap (which I ripped and used for one of my own), also passed the screen:

But Upload Cinema is no cheap excuse for a Hollywood no-brainer. Taking a contextual approach, ViralBlog’s http://www.viralblog.com  Paul van Veenendaal (replaced by his boss due to sickness) was invited to talk about viral marketing, and about the marketing industry’s slow-but-sure embrace of web-users as partners.

But will their productions snatch Youtube’s prime-space away from the people it was intended for – you and me? That’s not so clear-cut: viral’s production value – or rather: ‘unproduction’ value – is one of its main assets. Knowing that the brilliance you’re watching was created (and/or mashed-up) by some 15 year-old, not by a team of highly paid creative industry professionals, only adds to your viewing experience.

And marketers trying to make participatory culture work for them may only end up making their clients look bad – as the good people at Chevrolet found out the hard way:

(They’ve built a hybrid now)

But crowdsourced, unproduction value is not the end-all, for now at least. For the web boasts some prime examples of professional creativity, as demonstrated by Zune’s spec ad (less suited for broadcast tv, because not for the faint-of-stomach):

As of writing, Upload Cinema hasn’t archived this month’s selection yet, but it’ll probably be up there soon (without the Chevvy ad – I got that one from Michael Wesh’s excellent ‘Anthropological Introduction to Youtube’). Next session: Monday 2nd February.

Photo Live At Upload Cinema in Amsterdam by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.