Unmediated? Nope. It’s just that anyone can become a mediator, now. Today two stories juxtaposed themselves just so in my newsreader. First a Wired piece on a California schoolteacher’s homemade iPod ad:

“There’s a real trend toward consumer-generated media. People are creating news, they’re blogging. People will create marketing as well.”

Then Lucas Gonze on the perils of selling out:

Now that I’ve been doing this a few weeks I strongly agree that paying people to talk about you is a good idea. The tricky part is being a paid talker, because the money breaks the conversational flow and makes it hard to not be creepy or annoying.

The near future will bring all sorts of new social etiquette questions. “How much advertising should I splice into my wedding video?”