Seth posted this fantastic post regarding the future of content on the net and how it is nearing its saturation point. I thought I would share (have included the post below) and I must say I tend to agree.I'm all for the long tail and niches but after a while the environment will feel like it is very cluttered. For instance how many Australian marketing and advertising blogs do we need? How many can we actually sustain? How many do we actually consume? If there aren't enough readers out there ever, it seems like an awful waste of time and energy, and almost a revisit to the early years of the blogosphere à la an extension of the personal diary. By you, for you if you like. And what is really the ROI on that?
Despite my pet hates with the platform, I think Twitter has really found an interesting space in the greater web. If we as individuals are almost full as Seth says, people have to be a lot more proactive about getting their content out there and to the consumers who matter (the return of direct marketing?). If Twitter itself had a filtering mechanism (and yes I'm sure there are third party programs that do) it would really take user-generated content and suggestions/recommendations to the next level to truly find its semantic calling.
+ Warning: The internet is almost full
"Due to the extraordinary explosion in video, blogs, news feeds and social network postings, the internet is dangerously close to running out of room.
Nothing can grow forever, and exponential growth is always short lived. We're running out of disk space, so if you have something left to say, better hurry. Once it's full, it's full.
Of course, the decentralized nature of the net means that it will never be physically full. As long as we can keep making hard drives, we won't run out of space to store those inane videos of your Aunt Sally. What is full is our attention.
Ten years ago, you had a shot of at least being aware of everything that mattered. Five years ago, you had to be really selective about what you took in, but at least it was possible to know what you didn't know. Today, it's impossible. Today, you can't even read every article on a thin slice of a thin topic.
You can't keep up with the status of your friends on the social networks. No way. You can't read every important blog... you can't even read all the blogs that tell you what the important blogs are saying.
Used to be, you could finish reading your email, hit "check email" and nothing new would show up. Now, of course, the new mail is probably a longer list than the mail you just finished processing.
The internet isn't full, but we are."
Love your work Kate. But blogs are just personal diaries! I don't care if no-one reads what I write, it's the act of formulating the idea and publishing it that thrills me!
ReplyDeleteI'm with Matt on that point. At least I know my mum will read my blog.
ReplyDeleteHaha. I'm unfortunate because my Mum won't even do that! I subscribe my family to the Marketing eNews that I put together at work each week and I'm sure they've marked it as spam. :-(
ReplyDeleteSpoken like an old school marketer Kate. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe internet is a community medium NOT a broadcast medium.
I'm sure there are millions of webpages out there that no-one has seen other than the person who created them. So what!
Go to a library and tell me how many of the books you've read. That's actually read. Not the ones you've heard of. Guarantee it would be less than 0.001% of the contents of the library.
Which means you're reading books from the library longtail, surely?
Same goes for Marketing mag.
Go to a busy suburban newsagent and ask the people in the store what they've just purchased. Chances are most of them will have a newspaper. Maybe a gossip glossy. Very much doubt they'll have a fresh new copy of Marketing under their arm.
This doesn't mean Marketing is not a good mag, it just means it is produced for a limited number of people who are interested in a particular subject.
The internet enables all the people interested in a niche subject to come together. No need to ask the newsagent or librarian if they have your favourite. No need to 'order it in'.
I'm rambling now. In fact this is the longest comment I've ever written. Hopefully it makes sense!
Best...Stan
Go Stan! And thanks for bestowing your longest comment ever on The Zeitgeists!
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you say but my query was actually going that one step deeper - in niches for instance, using your library analogy and perhaps a book on the 'history of the earring back', how many books do we need on the history?
One or two... fine, perhaps a third if it is better written and more comprehensive than the first two but a hundred - well... why? The same goes for the net.
I'll even get older school marketer - what's the point of going into a market if it is already saturated? In this case it's the content market and often the entrants aren't coming into this market with a better offering. Sometimes they simply can't because the heritage of the current content is already established and the community has already gathered around some of the pre-existing content. First to market does have its advantages!
And yes 'Marketing' is a definitely a niche publication (we are Niche Media after all).
:-)
Hi Kate
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I found myself nodding in agreement with most of it (as well as with the comments!).
This, in particular, stood out for me;
"Ten years ago, you had a shot of at least being aware of everything that mattered. Five years ago, you had to be really selective about what you took in, but at least it was possible to know what you didn't know. Today, it's impossible. Today, you can't even read every article on a thin slice of a thin topic".
It's daunting, but never, ever boring. That's for sure.
: P