It’s Raining Content!
Reader Advisory - The Following Post is about the Future. Intense Speculation about the Future May Cause Pimples.
I think I may be overdoing it a bit when it comes to looking at web content. I review around 30 to 40 sources over the day. And I go back to some of these sites more than once. In my “web world”, text is still king. The internet still is mainly about words and it looks a lot like journalism.
But that is changing. GigaOm had its third birthday the other week, and Om Malik put his finger on one aspect of the change. Giga is no longer chasing news tidbits about new gadgets. Giga is getting into collaborative research and writing about tech/business trends. This is not just “blogging blah blah I think You think” - the blog text is just the tip of the iceberg. Below the water is a growing network of value creation, and relationships between writers and companies. Interesting.
Here’s another new thing (new at least to me). Every now and then, through his blog Fred Wilson offers designers and programmers suggestions on new software platforms that he would want — and they are making them. The point is not the text but the exchange of ideas that produces new products.
I won’t get into food blogs except to say that they are now not just about sharing photos and recipes of what somebody made last night for dinner. There is more and more linking and networking beyond the dish at hand (to fellow chefs, food producers, etc.).
And then there’s video. The problem here is that most people don’t know how to make good video content, or even if they could, what to do with it. So my web video world is mainly about watching copies of Hollywood movies or TV (Maltese Falcon anyone?). I am not a huge fan of amateur hour.
But that may change too as the cost of experimenting falls. Ene showed me a nice example from Latvia (though the video was pulled off YouTube by the Latvian Tourist Board). The video showed some promise as an example of “local chic”. And I don’t get why the Latvian Tourist Board doesn’t want people to see it. Could it be that they want to protect their “ownership” rights? Snicker. Snicker.
Thinking further about video — Henry Blodget has a nice article today in HuffPost where he argues that in 5 to 10 years, TV and cable are both toast. Blodget thinks they will be overwhelmed as more and more quality video content circumvents their choke points to access.
Hmmm … developing a mini Hollywood in Tartu? Now that’s a wild idea!
FOLLOW - Oops! I left out the elephant in the china shop. The political use of internet has moved from novelty to commodity (as evidenced in the Obama campaign, and now in Iran) Tom Friedman writes about twitter as the new “virtual mosque”. But … ”Bang-bang beats tweet-tweet!”? Tom does have a way with wordies.