In this blog I look beyond the obvious and try to find out why people and companies do what they do - and what it means for the rest of us. 
My research director, John McKnight, has been making the point that eventually the content “crap factories” will drive people so crazy they will go back to paying for legitimate “thought,” analysis, and data.
Louis Gray recently blogged on the topic (quite brilliantly) and clarified some thoughts for me.
In short, the reason there is too much regurgitated crap out there is Google. The pay per click advertising model, made so successful by the big G, is why there is such garf in the form of news or analysis.
The model is based on clicks, clicks are based on eyeballs, and eyeballs are based on popular topics. So there are now companies out there that do NOTHING other than observe the most frequently searched terms, then find/write/hack up a piece of crap that contains all those terms so that you when you click on that link, you’ll read said hunk of crap and hopefully click an ad for something else.
Advertisers want the eyeballs, so they don’t care if the content is garbage, stolen, or whatever. They just want to make sure that if you surf Tiger/Porn Star/Nike you see a Reebok ad. This is the game that we play.
The problem occurs in areas where the reader might be motivated by something other than a click to an advertiser – where they might actually want some news and/or analysis or god forbid, data. The CCFs (content crap factories) don’t “do” analysis or data. They regurgitate garf surfed from somewhere else. One of the telling quotes for me mentioned in Louis’s blog was from Google’s DeWitt Clinton, who posted to Twitter, “Don’t worry. Save some time. Your story doesn’t need a shred of truth to it. It will be retweeted just the same.” In which case, where does the responsibility lie? There is none, so it lies nowhere. More interesting perhaps is the thought about the inverse – instead of dumbing down to meet the masses, shouldn’t we really focus on smarting up to meet the right audience?
The current model is based on the lowest common denominator – getting as many of the unwashed to the site, with no regard nor care for who is clicking the ad. Isn’t that ass backwards? Wouldn’t Reebok pay MORE for me to click their ad than the crackhead down the road? It seems to me, the advertising model should be flipped upside down. We should focus on WHO the actual clicker is, not how many we get. Charging the same for a click from a senior IT person as we do for a night student doing research is moronic – but that’s what we do. So, until the motivation changes, we shouldn’t expect the crap factories to change what they are going – instead, it will accelerate.
So my question is: In areas of non-TMZ hollywood stupidity – say, in IT, for example – is news, analysis, and data “worth” anything to the “individual” reader?
In order for the likes of ESG to monetize (a.k.a. stay in business) legitimate valuable content, we are forced to NOT put it all into the public domain. We don’t support an advertising model. So we live in a hybrid, where we attempt to put what we can into the public domain so that hopefully that public finds us credible and valuable, but respect the fact that commercial entities pay us for our content value – thus we’d be morons to bite the hand that feeds us and give it all away.
Should we consider a mass market advertising based approach? Would that naturally force us to become a crap factory? Should we go the other way and open up all our analysis and data to the individual for a fee? Would anyone pay?
My fear is that as a society, we’ve again gone too far off intended course. Unplanned use models for the net and social web have created a dumbed down society of content readers. Do we need a tech version of TMZ? Didn’t Byte & Switch prove that we don’t? I’m all for entertainment, but is anyone really going to make a critical IT business decision based on the latest Lady Gaga goof up? Lord, I hope not.
Everyone has a voice and an opinion. The net makes the shy and meek into Superman. People are brave in their online persona, but wouldn’t stand up and argue their point in a true public (i.e., actual) forum – mostly because they are totally full of shit. They have no basis, no facts. They spout crap because they can. While I’m all for freedom of speech, I’d prefer to elect to walk into Hyde Park corner – not be fooled to listen because the speaker planted the proper keywords. What if I went to listen only to find out that their dissertation is not actually on “why the war on drugs is an enormous mind control waste of time and money”, but instead that “the devil can be found in a Little Caesar’s pizza”. I can’t get that time back. Plus, I like that pizza.
Discuss.
Related posts:
Tags: Google
blogs
Unravelling this problem is not going to be easy, as you suggest. It really comes down to monetizing quality, rather than quantity. And that is very, very hard to do, especially on the Internet, where the amount of competition for eyeballs + the sheer number of those eyeballs that are less discerning, is so great. The very openness of the web may be part of the problem.
Paywalls are regarded as anathema by the web community – but in some respects that have definite advantages. Walling off content from the wider web creates a filter that leads the more discerning to content that’s exclusive and higher quality, and keeps junk traffic to a minimum. How to market these closed content portals? Via the open web, of course.
Steve, your comments are right on the money and I share your observations. To use an oxymoron: there is a growing diminution of relevant and valuable IT news & analysis due to mindless rehash of news by equally endowed imposters. So, to your questions (which I assume were rhetorical in nature – but in this climate perhaps not so obviously rhetorical to all readers of your blog) I respond as follows:
“Should we consider a mass market advertising based approach?”
NO Once you give yourself over to an advertising model you have basically put yourself in a position of chasing numbers versus adding value. I am certain your clients will tell you they do not want that.
“Would that naturally force us to become a crap factory?”
YES for the reasons I just mentioned in the previous answer.
“Should we go the other way and open up all our analysis and data to the individual for a fee?”
NO because that would negate your need for self promotion which is particularly neccessary in the cacophony of today’s web. This isn’t a chicken and egg riddle. Freely accesible content must be self serving and promotional.
Would anyone pay? YES There are still discerning clients out there that do not want to wade though the crap and do want insightful, knowing, comment & analysis. They know the difference as much as you would know the difference between the taste of Moet versus Ripple.
In summation: I do not begrudge the proliferation of CCFs, or even tech blogs by self styled “experts” (some of these sit in high positions at very recognizable publications, as you well know). Instead, I see this as an opportunity made possible by the contrast in content that is likely apparent to the client. Our clients are receptive to our “regurgitated” news due to the nature and extent of daily searching we do and the intelligence behind our aggregation of the news. They are also receptive to the comments we make which, in each client’s case, are tailored to their specific concerns. (For example: A buy-side analyst, advising portfolio managers, has a completely different set of concerns versus the factory manager that is trying to make difficult capex decisions). Our clients are discerningly interested in our data and, of course, are always interested in our ability to advise key trends and issues before it hits the news and generates the resulting echos that you address in your remarks above. In other words, we regard it as a failure if a story that we call attention to reveals something that we haven’t already identified at least in a peripheral way as a trend or a likeley fall out. I think you share the same view that I have and I suspect your entire post is a bit tounge-in-cheek. You give it away when you wrote “instead of dumbing down to meet the masses, shouldn’t we really focus on smarting up to meet the right audience?” which was, most definitely, a rhetorical question. The answer, of course,is a respounding YES. Cheers & Happy Holidays
[...] Shared Is There Any Intelligent Content on this Planet?. [...]
Well analyzed and really informative post imho – really appreciate it that you shared the post with us in a free manner btw.
My guessing is, there are many and different forces that are the cause and foundation for crap (factories). E.g. the realtime web (aka Twitter) together with its quick-and-easy distribution methods, makes it hard for traditional publication methods to catch up in novelty, speed.
Imho, novelty rules today; people in their procastination strive for content that is new. Traditional criterias by which journalistic content gets rated, has no real value anymore. It is not the foundation to decide “who gets my money”.
If this is true, we have a real problem.
1) real-time systems will win in the end
2) The amount of “new” content / information is really quite limited compared with remixed (almost crap) content. Even harder, you have to have a lot of background and specific domain-knowledge to actually contribute new information.
Ironically, as a Backup company CEO (Highly Reliable Systems) in search of answers to increasing our market awareness on the web, I was driven to your blog in search of content and understanding. 2 years ago I pulled the plug on an SEO and google ad words campaign after I couldn’t measure results (I paid for too many of those mouth breather clicks you mention). I just read the book “Satisfied Customers tell three friends, Angry customers tell 3000″ on my new Xmas Kindle which got me thinking about the web and blogging again. I have found that many of today’s business books have about one chapter’s worth of useful content, then a bunch of filler (not unlike regurgitated web content). Unfortunately this book was not different, but it did at least get me thinking. I have previously resisted the urge to blog, although I must say the temptation to build a bully pulpit has at times been compelling. In the end, wasting my time as another one of 100′s of thousands of unread blogs rehashing the same material just doesn’t appeal (Even though I suspect I have more legitimate posts in me than most bloggers). It seems everywhere I see advice that insists that a company CEO (or someone in the firm)should blog and be actively involved in social media. At least my reading taught me about a few tools I was unaware for measuring blog rattings & traffic counts (technorati lead me indirectly here). It seems everyone wants to be famous or have thousands buy their products. Your post convinced me to spend my time out selling and maybe hire a marketing expert to promote our tapesucks.com website. The challenge is in finding a marketing guru without a license to steal. Say what you will about conventional media…at least google can measure and charge based on actual impressions. Wouldn’t it be nice to be charged for marketing/advertising based on actual sales results??