Of Content Creators, Promoters, Universe and Internet
Recently, I saw a Tweet about some mobile stats.. I clicked on the URL and was led to a blog (WATBlog) that gave a gist of the mobile stats. Mentioned in the article, was a line crediting the source of information with a link to another website (Phonearena). Out of curiosity, I went to Phonearena to realize that the 'actual' source credited to was a traditional media publisher (BBC). Not sure if the article actually appeared in a TV show or was syndicated from some other source... but let us assume that BBC was the actual 'Content Creator" in this instance. One thing I observed was that majorly, the content remained unchanged (copy, paste :))
This would a typical scenario online, except maybe in case of personal conversations and updates on networking sites. Most Content Creators still are the traditional media companies. As hierarchy on the Internet gets blurred day by day, technology advancements happen in terms of publishing content and also 'tagging' it... the role of 'Content Missionaries' would reduce.
Transporting simple format content (Text + Image) is easy. However, with Search Engines honing its algorithms and using a bit of AI, there would be every possibility that the Content available in the intermediary sites would fall in a blind zone. As the streaming and bandwidth capability increases, and as the devices become compact, richer formats like Video and Audio would be preferred. And these formats are not easily replicated or transported. This means that intermediary sites would have to behave like a window (by embedding the original content)
The only way niche websites and blogs that gather content from other website(s) can survive is by 'adding' value to the original content or by 'curating' the available content on that topic. Adding value could be a deeper analysis of the content for a specific set of audience (who are their core readers), and insights into what the impact of that article would be in general (if not explained in the original content itself). By becoming Curators, it would mean that they will filter out the non-important messages pertaining to the topic and only give the highlighted ones. Hence instead on relying on one source of content and re-publishing it they would source of similar content in other sites too and then come with their point of view. In both these instances, the intermediary site owners would have to rewrite the entire content rather than replicate it
On a different note, the similarity between Universe and the Internet is that both are ever expanding. However, the important difference is that each content in the Universe is unique, but on the Net, most of the ever expanding content is usually rehashes. I think, that for the Net to sustain, it should keep expanding - for if it begins to contract/shrink, it would signal doom for the system... But with rehashes becoming hard in the future because of technology and IPR, the speed of expansion would surely decrease. What is more worrying is if the amount of content that is being created too decreases or say keeps disappearing - companies destroying content due to Cost-Benefit constrains; then it would soon be doomsday on the information highway
The only way we can sustain this information universe is by contributing to content creation...always :)
Cheers,
Santosh
This would a typical scenario online, except maybe in case of personal conversations and updates on networking sites. Most Content Creators still are the traditional media companies. As hierarchy on the Internet gets blurred day by day, technology advancements happen in terms of publishing content and also 'tagging' it... the role of 'Content Missionaries' would reduce.
Transporting simple format content (Text + Image) is easy. However, with Search Engines honing its algorithms and using a bit of AI, there would be every possibility that the Content available in the intermediary sites would fall in a blind zone. As the streaming and bandwidth capability increases, and as the devices become compact, richer formats like Video and Audio would be preferred. And these formats are not easily replicated or transported. This means that intermediary sites would have to behave like a window (by embedding the original content)
The only way niche websites and blogs that gather content from other website(s) can survive is by 'adding' value to the original content or by 'curating' the available content on that topic. Adding value could be a deeper analysis of the content for a specific set of audience (who are their core readers), and insights into what the impact of that article would be in general (if not explained in the original content itself). By becoming Curators, it would mean that they will filter out the non-important messages pertaining to the topic and only give the highlighted ones. Hence instead on relying on one source of content and re-publishing it they would source of similar content in other sites too and then come with their point of view. In both these instances, the intermediary site owners would have to rewrite the entire content rather than replicate it
On a different note, the similarity between Universe and the Internet is that both are ever expanding. However, the important difference is that each content in the Universe is unique, but on the Net, most of the ever expanding content is usually rehashes. I think, that for the Net to sustain, it should keep expanding - for if it begins to contract/shrink, it would signal doom for the system... But with rehashes becoming hard in the future because of technology and IPR, the speed of expansion would surely decrease. What is more worrying is if the amount of content that is being created too decreases or say keeps disappearing - companies destroying content due to Cost-Benefit constrains; then it would soon be doomsday on the information highway
The only way we can sustain this information universe is by contributing to content creation...always :)
Cheers,
Santosh
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