Future of journalism now shilling American Express on a fake trolley
[UPDATE BELOW]What's up with the bubbly former host of Rocketboom, which was supposed to be the Internet's first huge news show before it leveled off? According to the London Times, Amanda Congdon's show for ABC News is "currently in the world's top 40,000 blogs," which puts it somewhere below great-soups-ive-eaten.blogspot.com. But Congdon has always been proud of her second career as a host for corporate stunt videos, and she recently starred in an American Express ad (shown below) shot in San Francisco. It's for a good cause, in a way: AmEx is giving away up to $5 million for a world-improving project to be selected by its customers. Metaphor-makers rejoice: The "cable car" carrying journotainer Amanda through the city in this video is a fake. Okay, okay, a "replica."
Bring on the endorsements indeed.
UPDATE: Consumerist.com says that AmEx's project is getting hijacked by Proctor and Gamble, who entered a project of their own for this $5 million contest. The "Children's Safe Drinking Water" project would be enacted by UNICEF, and guess what corporation sells water purification systems.