How to Buy Friends and Influence People 1: Content Zero-Does the Web Have a Workable System for Publishing and Distribution?
Crazy question, huh?
I mean, the web is a publishing and distribution system. Of course it works! I can use Google or any other search engine technology to pull up a page, post or video on just about anything I can imagine- and some things I don’t even want to. RSS can plug me into news feeds that become more deviant by the day, in an attempt to separate themselves from the noise. IRC tells me what people are thinking almost as soon as they think it- or before!
And platforms! Well, platforms are just so cool. But the growing interest in technologies that support the origination creation, deployment and management of content (content ‘strategy’) where web pages, video, blog posts, advertisements, long form stories, MOOCs and many, many others — can be attributed to challenges that result from:
(a) Steadily increasing volumes of digital information that impede an efficient search for specific documents and limit their message effectiveness
(b) Document and data quality
© Digital piracy
(d) Funding difficulties
We would argue that there are only two types of content.
The first of these is content about the self — content about me. Or you. Something which related to our personal experience. Sites like Facebook (in part), Instagram and Snapchat cater to our need to think and talk about our ‘selves’.
The second is content about the other. (Okay, I know this is a bit Laingian…but) Content about the other is newsfeeds, online learning programmes and that torrent of good — and unasked for advice that inundates platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and so on.
Content about the self is easy. No one expects to get paid for it. No one can rate it (except the producer). And it just keeps coming and coming and….coming
Content about the other is much more difficult. You used to have to pay for content about the other. It was — in academia, anyway- validated in some way, or — in traditional media at least reviewed by a sub-editor.
And of course, now it isn’t. Anyone can create other content. There are no limits to what people can say- and more importantly- how much they can say.
So how do we manage both the production and consumption of ‘other’ content. Because, content…being a system…its’ production and consumption interact in different and sometimes difficult ways. When content is free, consumers have no easy way to value it. Producers also have no way to value their own production.
There are two scenarios here. The first is that content consumers become more educated. They may not read a book but they read thousands of posts and their BS sense is getting better. Particularly when that BS is aimed at getting a sale. Paid for content is immediately suspect.
The second is where devaluation cycles set in where producer and the consumer enter into a race for the bottom. Cannot differentiate between paid content and something our best friends tell us. How, in this case, do producers know how effective their content is?
Of course, secret Bilderberg-like networks of people with ‘access’ may exist, but we think it is more likely that if you believe that you are fooling yourself. Content is…connected.
So how long before we hit content zero? How long before it’s impossible to tell how effective your content is because you have no reliable measure of value? And what will we do then?
