Thread: Content Is King vs. Information Overload

My 2 yen:

I think people want to continually get more content even if it is based on already published material, but in a new format. This happens over and over with print books.

Personally, I find myself searching for new videos on my favorite topics on YouTube even if the information is not that new, just another take on the subject.

Easily digestible content is something for the web publisher to strive for or for longer content, a more engaging way to present it maybe?

Originally Posted by Andy101

I think people want to continually get more content even if it is based on already published material, but in a new format. This happens over and over with print books.

That's a good point. I'm currently reviewing four books on sailing, each of which has a different set of strengths and weaknesses. All four managed to find a paying customer.

In some perfect world there might be one perfect book on sailing -- one which makes all competing books unnecessary. In our world, that doesn't seem to happen very often.

Originally Posted by Andy101

Easily digestible content is something for the web publisher to strive for or for longer content, a more engaging way to present it maybe?

"Easily digestible" content has been a good earner for me. Longer content... that's a lot of work.

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

"Easily digestible" content has been a good earner for me. Longer content... that's a lot of work.

I find myself struggling to make articles long enough get past 300 x 250 adsense block.

Originally Posted by Andy101

I think people want to continually get more content even if it is based on already published material, but in a new format. This happens over and over with print books.

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

That's a good point. I'm currently reviewing four books on sailing, each of which has a different set of strengths and weaknesses. All four managed to find a paying customer.

In some perfect world there might be one perfect book on sailing -- one which makes all competing books unnecessary. In our world, that doesn't seem to happen very often.

In today's Internet Age, people expect to find what they are looking for online or to translate people want free content.

It's suprising to me to find that with so much content on the web, I still need to buy books when I am looking for "in depth" information on a subject.

Originally Posted by bogart

In today's Internet Age, people expect to find what they are looking for online or to translate people want free content.

It's suprising to me to find that with so much content on the web, I still need to buy books when I am looking for "in depth" information on a subject.

Maby the next evolution of content creation is make your website organized like a book, and have rich well researched content on it.
The bar of entry to something like this would be just right. If your going to make a site like that you would really have to know the topic at hand. After all your publishing a website book. xD

Originally Posted by Keldorn

Maby the next evolution of content creation is make your website organized like a book, and have rich well researched content on it.

Back before HTTP/HTML, we had something called Gopher. Gopher worked a lot more like that.

But, "the web" performs best with search traffic, and that naturally leads to short highly focused pages.

Our choice of tools has led to this outcome -- the dumbing down of the Internet.

Originally Posted by Keldorn

Maby the next evolution of content creation is make your website organized like a book, and have rich well researched content on it.
The bar of entry to something like this would be just right. If your going to make a site like that you would really have to know the topic at hand. After all your publishing a website book. xD

I've seen some websites set up like a book. The sites used javascript navigation and weren't too web friendly.

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

Back before HTTP/HTML, we had something called Gopher. Gopher worked a lot more like that.

But, "the web" performs best with search traffic, and that naturally leads to short highly focused pages.

Our choice of tools has led to this outcome -- the dumbing down of the Internet.

It's kind of like what Bruce Springsteen said in a song back in the 1980s: "500 channels and nothing to watch"

I don't think more free content is the only answer or even the only thing in demand. And it probably never will be. Even if you match paid offerings neck to neck people will still trust and value more what they pay for.

Also, since the only way to pay for free content are ads and ads can be annoying, just by that paid content wins out in terms of quality experience.

Finally, if you're making a web site into a book you might as well write an ebook and sell it or make the site itself into a training center, a paid membership site. The challenge is creating such a thing in the first place, whether it's a web-book, ebook or a training center. What to write about? Do you have enough expertise (it's not always enough to just be able to research)? Etc.

memenode:

I was just watching Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen and he was using animation to convert data to information in very useful ways.

The software he used to create that presentation was Trendalyzer from Gapminder. Google acquired Trendalyzer and it is now part of the Google Visualization API.

So if you don't mind sharing your data with Google...

Just like in regular media, people will be interested in what they are being presented with. What they don't know exists, they are not going to miss. Whatever information is out there in it's poor quality is what reaches them. Most of the sites I truly find informative are buried, but how many of the people I know are really inquisitive?
I guess that in its flawed algorithm, Google is just another extension of mass media. It was once different, about 10 years ago those who caught on early tended to have something to say.
The only way to truly provide continued value would be popularity driven media based on votes rather than algorithms, but I see no incentive for Google to change much as long as there is no alternative demanding change on their part to remain competitive.