Does the Internet Democratize or Commoditize Content?

I received a very thoughtful rebuke from Stanford Erickson of my recent article in Folio magazine called "Is the Media Iceberg Melting?" In this article, I discuss why the media landscape has changed and where the opportunities lie for the successful media companies of the future. In it, I discuss how the Internet (and Google) have created new opportunities for corporations to communicate directly with end-users instead of through traditional media outlets.

After our email conversation, I asked Stanford if he wanted to follow up on his comments with a guest blog post.  Below is that post.  What say you?

Praising Print and Disparaging the Internet

The Latin poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, or Horace (for short), who lived during the transition between B.C. and A.D., wrote that all writing (and all media for that matter) needs to be a combination of “dulce and utile.”  Building on that thought, I believe all writing, publications and other media require an appropriate ratio of dulce and utile.  For example, B2B publications, columns and writing about business in general require more utile than dulce. General news and interest publications probably need more dulce than utile. The most successful writers and editors have a knack of getting this ratio just right for their audience.

Joe Pulizzi in his article “Is the Media Iceberg Melting?,” which appeared in the August issue of Folio, raised many interesting points of how media companies are failing because Google and other search engines are “democratizing” content. By “democratizing”, he means they are providing useful information without the need of an expensive media platform, such as Forbes, The New York Times or The Economist.  He also notes that businesses, by hiring former journalists, are going directly to their customers with useful information via the Internet.

I take issue with this somewhat.  First, yes anyone with access to the Internet has access to an audience.  But more than “democratizing” information, to a greater degree, this is  “commoditizing” information.  And if a major purpose of providing the information is to monetize it, the commoditization  of  information on the Internet undermines that purpose.  All of us who believe in “brands” contend that greater value usually is attributable to brands more than commodities.  By this I mean, when you read The Washington Post, for example, your mindset already is prepared to accept credibility to a degree. And money usually blooms in credible soil.

This segues into my overall skepticism of Pulizzi’s premise that there is a great deal of monetary effectiveness from media-type information on the Internet. At one point in my career I was a member of Knight-Ridder’s advisory group to its New Media Center. Both Knight-Ridder and the New Media Center are now defunct.  Knight-Ridder put tons of time and money into the Media Center to help transition its printed products to be viable via the Web.  We found that there are two major problems with the Web, from a print media point of view. The writing style useful to newspapers and magazines is too clunky for the Internet.  Also, the Web provides information largely in a vertical format. We humans have been used to obtaining written information horizontally. The changeover from effectively digesting information vertically rather than horizontally, most pundits believe. is generational. I think if is more like several generations.

In addition, we humans have short-term memories.  Therefore when we read something on the computer and then scroll down or mouse over, we usually cannot remember what we read.  Whereas if we are reading a horizontal newspaper or magazine, we can easily flip back to recall what we read.  Printed publications have the advantage of being much more efficient in imparting salient information that needs to be digested, analyzed and reread.

The Internet is a wonderful aggregator of information. It helps create communities of like-thinkers. But its short-attention span and physical and mental restrictive modality does not necessarily lend itself  to the pursuit of thoughtful and effective communication for which advertisers are willing to pay.

Stanford Erickson
President
Media Integration Consultants
Annapolis, Md.
Serickson11[at]msn.com

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Comments

[Mark Nagurski]

Is the point really to create content "for which advertisers are willing to pay"?

I accept that one of the "major purposes" of creating content is to monetize it but surely the point here is that the way in which that information is monetized has changed.

Previously, information has been sold as inherently useful in itself (subscribers or newsstand sales) or the eyeballs which it attracts have been sold to advertisers.

Content as marketing, the type created by business rather than traditional media organisations, is designed to, amongst other things, build trust.

The monetization is therefore one step removed - content builds trust, trust improves the likelihood of sales.

The idea of "democratisation" extends to the fact that you don't need the expensive platform to publish. However, that is not to say that all sources of content are equal. Branding still matters, perhaps more than ever.

With so much information available the brands that build trust in the value of their content create competitive advantage. That trust even makes it way into search results through the relative importance of incoming links - votes of trust.

Similarly I'd take some issue with a line in Joe's original article that states; "as long as today's buyers get their answers, they don't care as much where the content comes from".

The qualification "as much" is fair enough but I believe the trend could very well end up in the opposite direction. Without the editorial checks inherent in traditional media, people will be increasingly concerned with the "brand" and source of their (online) information.

The only difference now being that the brand of trusted information is just as likely to be an insightful business - leveraging that trust into future sales, brand loyalty and word of mouth - as it is a traditional media outlet.

[Joe Pulizzi]

Hi Mark...I think you are right on with this. My point in the original article (which was geared at traditional media) is that corporate brands can create the same kind of trust through information that has traditionally happened through media companies. So, we are saying the same thing, just a bit differently.

Thanks for the post. Great stuff.