Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Consuming Content

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

In a world filled with RSS feeds and Twitter feeds (chances are, you might be reading this in a RSS reader), where your social networks all share content between each other. A world of infinite embeddable content. Where Google Wave is coming (just around the corner actually) and bringing even more ways for things to be embedded, shared, tweeted, emailed. We see a new realization on the horizon. The rediscovery that on the internet: Content is King. That means, everything else on the web is second to content. And the most important thing for anyone with a message or a business trying to sell a product/idea is getting your content out there.

THE EARLY DAYS

In the old days (internet time runs faster than real world time), delivering your content would usually mean buying your own domain, hiring a hosting service, a development and design company and then sharing your information with the world. Then, you would have all your information sitting somewhere, not really doing anything, waiting for people to see it. Next step would be investing even more money in spreading the content out by buying ads and focusing on getting everyone to visit that website that you paid to build.

Back then, people still used to call the Internet, an information superhighway and most people would only use it for information of some sort.

NEW TOOLS, NEW CHALLENGES

Time has changed and with it came the Age of Social Medias and Aggregators,a time of embedding and Retweeting. All of a sudden you can build a Facebook page for free, create a Twitter account, a Blogger account for yourself or your company, and you can use that to share all the information you written to an unlimited amount of people.

More and more companies are coming to see that here indeed lies the future of information delivery. Since social medias, like Twitter, are so spread out now, they make you feel like the internet is ubiquitous, like you’re not even on the internet at all. It’s as though all this information is delivered directly to you. And with the advent of the iPhone (and other smart phones and their softwares) and specially the advent of Push notifications, we are arriving at a time where the gap between online and offline is almost non-existent.

And that’s why we see a shift on companies communications. A large number of companies are abandoning (or at least not focusing too much on) their corporate websites and investing heavily in announcing their Twitter and their Facebook accounts. Even in old media ads like TV, radio and print trying to get consumers signed up to receive their every post directly. That way, it seems, the advertisement consumers that companies were afraid to lose because of DVRs and online TV streaming services, like Hulu, are now basically subscribing to the companies they like and accepting to receive ads from these companies delivered straight to them.

SPOON-FED CONTENT

This creates a new form of consumer. A consumer of directly spoon-fed content, that is less a consumer and more in a reality a “follower” or a “fan” of the companies and products he or she consumes. This also shows, that there’ll be a drastic change on the internet, with it becoming more and more ubiquitous, where we will be able to receive the content we want without having to go trough sites and portals. Content will finally be able to be omnipresent, delivered straight to you from whoever you accept (and that acceptance is key). With that Content will regain the title of King of the web (regain since the web was created with the sole purpose of sharing and distribute knowledge/content). And whoever holds the key to the delivery of this content, holds the key to an unlimited amount of consumers.

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