Two approaches to digital content creation and publishing are taking hold – and sadly neither of them are equivalent to the way most traditional publishers are set up.
The first is the ‘battery farm’ approach – as seen by aol. and several companies targeting content creation for primarily SEO purposes. Gather as many writers and journalists as you can keep in a warehouse, and get them to churn out as much content as possible for as many places as possible. And in the case of some companies, develop and use tools to see what people are actively searching for at the time to create the right content to capitalise on that interest (e.g. Yahoo).
The second is the ‘blogger’s niche’ approach. Start projects with just one or two people trialling an idea, see if it works, and if sustainable, built into a network model which can mean virtual offices and teams spread out wherever someone has an idea for niche content which could work. This is where you’re more likely to find great writing and insight in terms of longer, more thoughtful articles by people who can wax lyrically about their subject. See the likes of b5media, Techcrunch, Mashable, etc, etc.
The problem for traditional media companies is that they’re not geared up for either of these plans. They might have large numbers of content creators, but these people are grouped around specific products in the magazine industry, for example. The groups are too small to churn out content – and aren’t geared up yet for producing content for anyone else. Meanwhile they’re too large to use the network model – only the very smallest print magazine editorial teams are anything near compact enough, and even then the infrastructure and processes already in place mean it would be easier to scrap it all and start again.
This is all assuming a business model predominantly based on advertising revenue, which requires increasingly low costs in order to drive any profits. Other production method will exist hand-in-hand with different business models. But they will need to be created around the new business model, rather than vice-versa.
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1 Tim Archambault // Dec 3, 2009 at 12:39 am
Very interesting points. News publishers have been experimenting with option 2 in many variations with as far as I can tell limited results. Option 1….yes, they are not ready for that.
2 Lauren Fisher // Dec 4, 2009 at 12:21 am
I think publishers will put more time into the second option, as the long tail becomes increasingly relevant online. The big outlets are now competing with blogs in a very real way. Although they may not be proactively competing with blogs, that's the outcome in Google results as we become more sophisticated searchers, looking for niche content.
At the moment the 'blog' sections of the Guardian, Telegraph etc… don't have that much prominence on the sites but this could soon change.
3 Dan Thornton // Dec 5, 2009 at 11:59 am
Hi,
Thanks for the comments – the two business types that seem to be aggressively chasing Option 1 are definitely the internet portals like aol. and Yahoo, and potentially the copy-churning businesses that syndicate content for search engine optimisation at the moment. The interesting thing about the portals is finding out they're starting to target their writing based on what is prominent in their own search trends – a no brainer in many ways.
The blog idea has been coming up in traditional media companies for ages, but it needs to be one of connecting disparate web properties, rather than amalgamating them all on one massive site. The problem that I encountered a lot of times, including at my former employers, is that they're only geared up for having one key property of scale for a sales force, and the idea of creating a self-service mechanism or sells across a network of small, targetted sites was completely alien. And that also means noone is talking to potential advertisers and media agencies about it and encouraging them to try it, so the ad model is tough…
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