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Content 2.X: The Clash Where
Publishers, Technology Companies and Audiences Meet |
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10 October 2005 |
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The excitement brewing around the recent Web 2.0 conference
is palpable in Silicon Valley as the literati and
glitterati of content technology cook up a heady batch of
concepts to attract new investment. But before intelligent
and savvy investors start writing out checks it would be
wise for them to consider just what kind of businesses
they're underwriting. There's a lot of power in the Web 2.0
framework, but it's a loose framework that doesn't define a
powerful and effective scope of business operations against
which to measure success and failure. Enter Content 2.X,
Shore's definition of the powerful and rapidly evolving
union of technology, publishing and audiences partnering
towards common goals. |
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By many accounts the recent
Web 2.0
Conference in San Francisco was a resounding success,
providing exciting thoughts from those who are driving
significant recent trends in profitable Web content
development. What is Web 2.0, you ask? Well, that's kind
of a touchy subject. Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, Inc. tried
to refine the definition of this increasingly popular buzzword
in a recent
posting on his personal Web site, an effort that helped to
drive the O'Reilly-marketed Web 2.0 Conference. Kudos for that,
but as even O'Reilly notes a lot of the ideas circulating under
the Web 2.0 banner such as "the Web as platform" are hardly
new.
As noted by Ryan Singel in Wired Magazine, SocialText CEO
Ross Mayfield thinks that maybe "Web 1.0 was commerce. Web 2.0
is people." Hmm. Seems like we've had both for some time. In
fact major media companies are now eager for commercial
personal media properties such as Weblogs, Inc. and MySpace.com.
No wonder media veteran and IAC CEO Barry Diller gave the Web
2.0 concept a bit of a razz at the conference. But doggone it,
whatever Web 2.0 is it's very exciting stuff for folks in
Silicon Valley right now, especially those beginning to smell
the latest bait for VC money to keep high-tech visionaries
rolling in dough.
I think that the key clue to what's going on with these
high-level thinkers is in the tag line for O'Reilly's posting:
"Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of
Software." Ah, now I get it. The Web 2.0 is a software
thing. But wait - I thought the Web was about content.
Well, yes, but with successful services on the Web the lines
between content and software are becoming blurred increasingly
- as are the business models that are evolving out of this
intersection. When I do a search on Google, am I using a
technology service that retrieves links and ads or a publishing
service for links and ads? I don't care, of course: what
matters is that the service makes money. Yet it takes a strong
understanding of both publishing and technology to make such a
service effective. And that to me is the real significant
evolution in how content is being deployed these days. What
people are calling Web 2.0 is really about something that Shore
now calls Content 2.X, a rapidly evolving value equation
in which both content and technology companies are finally
learning how to use technology to be publishers of services
that take people's contextual publishing abilities into
consideration. Content 2.X's goal is to focus more on a
provider serving people once their services are in those
contexts than on controlling the channels or platforms that get
the services to their audiences.
To put it simply: Content 2.X is the technology business
evolving along with the publishing business into a common
content business in partnership with their audiences. In
its simplest form software is about getting a machine to do
something useful again and again. Publishing is about using and
controlling machines that create and distribute information and
experiences. Content is about the unique human thing that
happens when people get a hold of information and experiences
in venues that they value (see
our definition of content posted on Wikipedia - 6th bullet down).
In those venues sometimes physical or virtual machines are
perceived as an important part of content's value and sometimes
not. But what is always important in Content 2.X is
constantly adding new value for an audience in immediate
and long-standing contexts (venues) that increasingly the
audience controls. Technology developments such as
Web services help to define
payloads that help
software deliver information and experiences much more
effectively into audience-controlled venues, including communal
publishing environments and other contexts enhanced by an
audience's participation in the publishing.
So why are so many intelligent people seemingly chasing one
another around in circles instead of focusing on Content 2.X? I
believe that there are three key factors that will need to be
addressed before technology and publishing companies begin to
mesh more effectively in the Content 2.X environment:
- Many technology companies are pretty unaware of
the publishing business. There's probably been more money
wasted in Silicon Valley on technology concepts that did not
have clue one about what it takes to be an effective
publisher than any other misguided investment. Technology
companies are right to challenge traditional publishing
concepts, but a centuries-old trade is not something to be
ignored lightly.
- Many publishing companies are pretty unaware of the
technology business. Yes, it's a centuries-old trade but
it's a trade that in many instances has traded in its legacy
of leading-edge innovation for bean-counting within stagnant
business models. Publishers are right to question the wisdom
of upstart technologists, but the technology is no longer
what happens in the production room: it's an integral part of
the product from concept to delivery.
- Many publishing and technology companies are pretty
unaware of how to partner effectively with their audiences.
It's not just a matter of fearing their audience's ability to
make electronic copies with ease that pushes buttons at both
software and publishing companies. Both camps are very uneasy
with the idea that their creative works are somehow made more
valuable via a process that they control only loosely, if at
all. Thinking of audiences as business partners is the
key concept that vendors need to overcome. But o, it can be
so hard.
So have a ball, Web 2.0 people: in all sincerity I have the
deepest respect for your insights, professionalism and
experience. But in the meantime I think that Content 2.X is the
place to be for companies wanting to provide value to the
marketplace, a place that welcomes both established publishers
and media companies along with technologists creating value
from personal and enterprise content. Shore will be proud to be
the sponsor of the first Content 2.X Conference, coming to a
venue near you. Send us your thoughts and papers so we all can
get moving together on what's really going to send savvy
investors and executives into return-on-investment heaven.
After all, you're our audience.
-
John Blossom
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