They either hook into the old school “Content is King” media mantra or one of the post-old school “Content is Dead” mantras.
None of which adequately explain the harsh realities of post-modern media consumption patterns.
Go and Google the phrases “is Dead” + ”is King” and you’ll soon discover that content is still either king or it is dead… usurped by either conversations, contact, context, community, curation, relationships, search… the list goes on and on. It all depends which web guru you call upon to frame the terms of the discussion.
The problem with all these concepts is they represent outdated ways of understanding media.
They make the mistake of focusing on how to be sticky rather than how to be totally engaging.
Let me put this into context for you. In the 1950 through to the 1980′s ticket prices to live music concerts were relatively inexpensive by today’s standards and yet consumers paid a premium for recorded music, distributed on vinyl, cassette or CD, that they could play at home. In direct contrast today we pay a premium for the live performance and we expect out digital music to be free or at the very least relatively inexpensive.
You see what has happened in the music industry? Today we value “Copies” of content less but “Authentic” live experiences more.
One needs to acknowledge that web sites and now mobile apps are to this y-generation what singles and LP records were to the Baby Boomers. Software is the new media and start-ups are the new Guitar Bands.
Close your eyes for just one minute and imagine all the web sites you have visited in the past 24 hours, 7 days or month. Do you struggle to differentiate between them? Is that because most of them the offer the same experience? Yes the content may change, in some cases even the conversations may change, but ultimately they all offer the same web media experience.
Now let’s revisit what I said about the web when I first started this journey. The web, as with all software, is about the engaging the user by providing them with tools and things to do. It is the activity that engages the audience, not the content. What counts is what they can do with the content. You could say we no longer consume content, we have experiences with it.
When people come to your web site or download your mobile app they are looking for the same thing they are looking for when they go to a rock concert or Disneyland. They are looking for a media experience. Once that experience turns flat they move on. After all they have hundreds of millions if not billions of options to choose from.
What the Rock Concert and Disneyland (or even the Farmville, Texas Hold’em and Tap Tap Revenge) examples tell us is if you can get the media experience right (i.e. Authentic, Exciting, Addictive and/or Engaging) then customers will pay for it.
People will have many reasons for coming to your web site or downloading your mobile app but in the end they will only stick around if they continue to enjoy the experience. That means not just the content or the conversations but the total package of activities and events. It’s all about designing the ultimate user experience.
Looking further ahead the challenge I see down steam for start-ups is simply this: Software, like all digital media content, can be easily replicated and distributed. It is therefore inevitable, even if they do eventually get the online media experience right, that the software industry will face the same pressures that traditional media contents faces online. We are already seeing that in the long tail economics of the Mobile App Stores and the old “Google” Web.
This is of course is a fundamental of MobCon economic theory… access to Free Content and Free Apps on your Free Mobile Handset distributed across a Free Wireless Network courtesy of your mobile wallet provider.
gb
March 30, 2011
off the topic: but what if that content you’re planning to bring is what the online newspapers in your contry lack? in your contry things may be different, but here things are kind of… retro, as you said. they don’t even have multimedia feature stories or non-linear storytelling, for example. i’m into feature stories, that’s why I’m giving this example. if i apply your post to my ideas, i get really depressed. it makes me think that a bunch of young freelancers (content generators by definition, in our case) will fail in pretty much everything. maybe i didn’t get it right, it’s almost 4 in the morning and i’m really sleepy. i’ll read it again tomorrow. as said, i’m a little bit off topic, i know. i’m aware that i’m awfully young, therefore 90% of my ideas may be awfully stupid, but i really want to believe that if you generate quality/innovative/fresh content, people will read you. i don’t know… i’m sorry if i mispelled words, i tend to do that when i’m all sleepy. (: