BPN 1628: Why content is so important?

Tomorrow it is Thursday and I will have to do a presentation for the class of second year college students, preparing communication world. The title of the course is Research in Digital Media and tomorrow's subject is content. Preparing for this class I found a nice A4 article on the Facebook of my friend Tommi Pelkonen, who works for Frantic in Helsinki (Finland). His colleague Taina wrote an article on content.

Content and content strategy have been on people’s lips more and more for the past few years. Yet this thing called content is still rather overlooked in many projects. So, what is this content and what does it do?

Well, let’s face it: content is the reason why websites are created. There are no real websites without any content. Simply put, content is everything you have on the website: texts, images, sounds, videos – all of it. If you have a website with a purpose, there must be some content on it. But you probably already knew that, so what’s all the fuss about? Websites have content, so what. Well, the biggest issue isn’t the content per se, but the quality of that content. And boy, we have a lot to do with that.

When creating a website, you obviously need to have a reason for it. Either you want to sell something, let people know about you or your work or tell a good story – there’s always something to share with the world. And bang, there’s your content. But no, it doesn’t end there, because the way you present the content is equally important.

This is where it all begins. It just isn’t enough to create a pretty website and then dump the texts and images there as an afterthought. Imagine you’ve drawn a box on a paper and then try to fit in all you have to say. Having some trouble? Well no, if you only have a word or two in your mind, but most likely that is not the case. For this, there’s an easy solution: just write the text first and then create the box around it. As simple as that!

So, imagine how convenient it would be to have the content first and then create a website around it. No hassle needed. Unfortunately, in reality this still is quite idealistic, as projects tend to have strict deadlines and life just isn’t very simple and someone’s cat just died and so on. But, to make things easier and to create pretty and functional websites, it sure helps to at least think about the content before you start working on anything else and then keep it in mind throughout the whole process, so that there definitely is a place for every piece of information on the site and that there won’t be any empty or otherwise unnecessary pages or blocks.

What’s more, you should really pay attention to the fine details of your content, especially spelling, grammar and that it’s up to date. It may sound like nitpicking, but hey, the bottom line is that it’s the content people are coming to your site for and therefore it would be nice if the content were clear and current. When you think about an ad or a website that has a lot a typos or old info, does it seem professional and reliable? Well, to me at least it does not. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone with this. So, don’t forget to take that extra hour or two and check and double-check your content so that you can be absolutely sure that it’s correct and up to date before publishing it.

In the end, if you just think a little about your content before rushing into things (or, let us professionals do the thinking), you’ll probably save some time in the end – and save everyone’s nerves as well, as you don’t have to panic about how to cram all the content to your nice-looking but impractical website.

Author

Tanina is a copywriter at Frantic. She likes reading romantic novels on the train, the smell of rain (but not the rain itself) and finding pretty things. She also believes that good cake can make any day feel a whole lot better.

Is cross-media dead?

It was a festive week. My daughter celebrated the first 5 years of marriage. It reminded me of the crazy situation five years ago: the day after the wedding, an EU call for projects was to close. A small project team had worked for more than two weeks on a proposal with telephone calls from hotel rooms to our office. On the day of the wedding the proposal had not been finished yet. So, the night after the wedding, the proposal fine-tuning continued with one person sitting in a hotel room in Rome and I am working from my study. The next morning at seven in the morning the proposal was finished and the last version approved. So the printing could start (and the printer did not fail). By 9 o’clock my partner was on her way to Brussels to deliver the proposal before the deadline. And we made it.
By September we had a contract with the EU for the ACTeN project, an almost 1 million euro project with 10 European partners, fully funded by the EU.

The project has run its course in the meantime. Roundtables have been held, summer schools were run, conferences were organised. Presently there is still a site up, containing reports of the roundtables, logs of the summer schools, books of the conferences and a final report. The project partners went even further than the EU assignment by setting up a series of special reports on:
- Scientific Publishing;
- Paid Content;
- Mobile Games;
- Digital Media Service Business;
- Online Storytelling;
- e-Learning;
- Interactive Digital TV;
- Cross Media;
- Experience Machines.
At the end of the project the reports were re-edited and were published in the book E-Content: Technologies and Perspectives for the European Market, ed. Peter A. Bruck e.a.; (Springer, 2004).


I will have to re-write the paper on cross media over the coming weeks as I have been invited to present a lecture at the CMID 07, The 1st International Conference on Crossmedia Interaction Design at Hemavan in Sweden from March 22-25, 2007. Key note speakers are Professor Liam J. Bannon from the University of Limerick, Ireland and Ms Christy Dena from the university of Sydney. I will be looking forward to the conference. But first I will have to re-write the paper, posing questions about the discipline (is cross media a disciple?). I recently visited a college, where they have a cross-media minor. It was interesting to see that they had 30 students taking that course. Yet in 2005 a Finnish scientist posed the question when cross media would fade out as a term, c.q. discipline. I love this type of questions. It is like a theologian stating that God is dead. So my statement most likely will be: cross media is dead.

Blog Posting Number: 675

Tags: content, cross-media

Seven content trends

At last the 2007 annual report and forecast for the content industry by Shore Communications is out. And again it is very interesting. In less than 20 pages the consultants of Shore Communications look back at the developments of the year 2006, comparing what they wrote last year and what became of the industry that year. But they also looked ahead and condensed the trends for 2007 in seven keywords. So the consultants do not just look ahead without any refernce framework looking back. This makes their outlook for 2007 more trustworthy.

Last year their main theme was about investing in users. And what a forecast that was. At the end of the year Time Magazine awarded the Person Of The Year award to the user. The user content generation, the citizens’ journalism, the community created content they all began to be taken seriously by websites as Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace and Second Life. The year 2006 was about users in control of content production and aggregation. But it was also the year in which online advertisement grew again with big jumps; in which video made its entry after so many years in the waiting room; in which social media became reality; in which private equity started investing again.

The report signals six important developments in 2006. The institutional markets request insertion of third party content in their systems. Scholarly publishing got competition from Google Scholar and PLoS. In the business media the sell-off of VNU might sound a consolidation. In general media an array of new hardware, software and social media came about serving the iPOD and Zune, satellite radio and the LCD screens. Book publishers were confronted with Sony’s e-book and other e-Readers based on e-Ink technology, but did not get frightened yet. In content technologies there is still room enough to develop analytical tools for the read/write web.

But the consultants of Shore Communications are not shouting Hosanna for 2007. In fact they point to a toughening economy towards the end of 2007, telling new and traditional publishers to set achievable goals. Many people are still in a very optimistic state, having just left difficult times. But as in the media treesome: the hype is always followed by the backlash after which reality sets in. As the report says: As in previous boom aftermaths, too much money chasing too few good ideas with too little knowledge about how to turn technology ideas into content services will make the “dead pool” a popular stopover for many startups. That’s a real sharp observation.

But for the year 2007, Shore Communication consultants have seven keywords all starting with an A: Answers, Audience, Aggregation, APIs, Alternatives, Acceleration and Asia. I like the observation that Google will no longer be good enough with collections of potentially interesting content. People want answers and have a dashboard to find answers fast. The general audience will change to targeted audiences for GPS and location based services. Aggregating content will move to a new area sailing between DRM and creative commons. Publishers will need APIs in order to sell content to companies, who want this information in their workflow. Content services will be come real time not just serving financial markets, but also other content markets. And last, but not least, Asia becomes a content consumption market, but for Western publishers this will need adaptation and a multi-cultural attitude, which is something different from just translations.

From that point the consultants dive into the major trends in their market model and close with conclusions and recommendations. It is worthwhile spending time reading it, discussing it with colleagues and draw actions from it for your content service. The conclusions of 2006 underwent reality checks and passed, so why doubt about the conclusions and recommendations of 2007.

BTW. There is a strange thing about the report’s copyright notice. The notice is most likely standard for all the company’s client reports. But as this report can be seen as an advertisement for the company, I wonder whether such a strict copyright notice is needed. This blog is perhaps trespassing as no part of the report should be disclosed to any party without the express written consent of Shore Communications Inc. Of course Shore Communications should guard the copyright, but it could also do this with creative commons copyright.

Blog Posting Number: 661

Tags: content, user generated content, citizen's journalism, community created content, copyright, creative commons

Creative content online: an opportunity for Europe

Revenue from online content will reach €8.3 billion by 2010 in Europe, a growth of over 400% in five years, says a new study for the European Commission. For the most advanced sectors, online content will represent a significant share of total revenue: about 20% for music and 33% for video games. Thanks to the spread of broadband, the roll-out of advanced mobile networks, and the massive adoption of digital devices, the study shows that mass market online content distribution is becoming a reality, creating unique opportunities for Europe.

This new study and annexes on 'Interactive Content and Convergence: Implications for the information Society' assessed the potential of the emerging creative content online market. It found that although the market is growing steadily, technological, economic and legal challenges – notably intellectual property rights and interoperability – need to be addressed for Europe to have faster market uptake. The study found that Europe trails the US' lead in developing interactive fixed broadband services, and Japan and Korea's in mobile services.

After a wide consultation, it identified 36 roadblocks to developing online content and assesses their market impact up to 2010. Today the most obvious roadblock is connectivity. Although broadband is spreading quickly and consumer take-up is enthusiastic, differences between EU Member States risk remaining high. For mobile services, the roadblocks include the slow uptake of 3G in Europe, and the sometimes confusing pricing and structure of data tariffs.

Many market players still need to adapt to the new distribution technologies which cut across national borders and traditionally separated sectors. This is still a major obstacle to developing content online. However, innovative and collaborative solutions to exploit content online are being found.

Piracy siphons off potential revenue and deters media companies from putting content online. Efficient Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems to manage and protect digital content are necessary for a secure and sustainable roll-out of digital distribution. However, concern over the lack of interoperability or standardisation in DRM may hinder digital content services and devices in the long term.

Consumer acceptance of new content services, a lack of specialised skills in media companies, or the cost of digitisation of content, also have a significant market impact. While some of the obstacles are global, others are due to Europe's market and legal framework. These may significantly slow down growth and competitiveness. As the market matures, evolving business practises will remove some obstacles but others may require measures from industry and EU legislation to provide legal certainty for consumers, content providers and the hardware industry.

Of course, the reaction of the EU commissioner Viviane Reding was very enthusiastic and should be enthusiastic as the study systematically addresses digital content:
"The long-awaited digital convergence is becoming an economic reality, creating great opportunities for Europe's consumers, content providers and technology industries," said Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "To capitalise may require casting a fresh eye at the technical and legal issues where a modernised and internal market-oriented approach would add value to European content. As I am preparing my 'Content Online in Europe's Single Market' package for the second half of 2007, today's study will prove very useful."

However, for the preparation of the Content Online in Europe’s Single Market package, she should take into regard, that the study is a rather formal study with a publishers’ scope of
digital content (television programmes, radio, music, movies, games, publishing). In all the 308 pages the term user generated content has only been used eight times and has never been quantified. The term cross media has not been used at all. (The term community created content appears zero times) As for these two newly developing areas of content services are developing on the basis of business models, specific attention should be paid to them and they should be quantified as they are usually offerd by non-traditional publishers or broadcasters.

Blog Posting Number: 647

Tags: content, digital content, user generated content