My latest OnlineMediaDaily newsletter pointed me to a Catherine Holahan article at businessweek.com about the seeming downward slide of user-generated (read “amateur”) video on the Web. Amazing, considering we really just got started consuming user-generated video in 2005 when YouTube launched. Can it really be a flash in the pan?

A highlight:

Over 57% of U.S. Internet users say they have watched or downloaded online videos, according to a July study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. But they’re not flocking to home videos. According to the study, viewers are most interested in news videos, followed by comedy bits and television shows. Research by Burst Media, an Internet ad network that studies the video market, echoed the findings, ranking news clips, movie trailers, comedy sketches, music videos, and TV shows as the top categories. The category that includes clips produced by users placed ninth out of 11.

I’m not surprised by that ranking, are you? But it’s not about from where, or by whom, the video is generated. This is about quality of content. And in that sense, sure, professionals have the upper hand. More years in the game, bigger production budgets, more contributors with proven chops as writers, editors, and directors. That’s not the point. The point is that user-generated content can be powerful, and can have a hell of a lot more impact than we currently expect from it.

I get that with the birth of user-generated content, the Web was flooded with, as Holahan put it, “skateboarding dogs and beer-drenched parties.” That crap will die down eventually, and good content will both rise up and find niche homes online. I leave the term “good content” vague purposely. I mean the really funny, the really unusual, the very passionate, the very dramatic, the most relevant.

In the past two weeks I’ve talked with folks about using user-generated video to help promote a park by letting visitors post video of their reactions and comments online. I’ve talked with folks who want to build a virtual museum from user-submitted interviews and stories. And I recently posted about Amazon allowing customers to submit video product reviews. All three are great applications of user-generated video. But in all three cases it still comes down to quality of content. People mooning the camera at the park, uninspired museum interviews, and lame product reviews would each render the respective intents worthless. BUT enthusiastic raves about the park, passionate storytelling, and insightful product reviews would each have greater impact than any professionally produced marketing piece could ever hope for.

Don’t write off user-generated video—just help it find its purpose.