“Content Is Not Just King, It’s The Emperor”

–Rupert Murdoch

Unless you are not a tech savvy person or have been living under a rock, you might be aware of Jeff Bezos purchase of the Washington Post for 250 million dollars this week. Both Democracy Now and The Talk Show with John Gruber contain wonderful analysis with in-depth detail which I highly recommend listening for up keeping purposes. I have decided to cover a holistic overview of the purchase to highlight four fundamental principles about the nature of web content. As it relates to the sale of the print newspaper to one of the biggest online distribution systems ever assemble on earth.  While highlighting the importance of web content over any other online commodity.

https://twitter.com/socialconceptdc/status/365675103905783808

Usability, Scalability, Visibility and Credibility lay at the heart of this purchase in relation to web content and re-distribution across devices in our ever connected digital context.

Usability:

Web content is a bit like water in that it takes no form and must conform to a multitude of devices. How  content will be served to our users is unknown territory in an open sea of tv interfaces like Apple Tv, car modules, smartphones, apps and web apps respectively. And lets not forget project glass. Its extremely difficult to sort out how this information will be displayed.

Making sure we take all these different interfaces into account will be one major component of how Amazon will probably re-brand the legacy newspaper in due time. Usability is a clear limitation of any paper based distribution system and one we get by default within a digital platform.

Scalability:

Ok, you have assembled the best content is the know red star universe.

Whats next? 

Making sure you deploy the right amount of server side scaling is a major role behind content strategy as users flock to your online store. For The Washington Post, I imagine Amazon S3 would be a viable solution if we are to see digital versions of the paper show up on Kindles and Kindle fire tablets in the near future. A huge selling point for amazon would be to showcase the paper as an exclusive as they are doing with tv shows. Perhaps a subscription revenue model may soon emerge.

The different between hundreds and millions of request to a server can be the key between value and doom.

A few useful links on server side tools for online content:

Heroku

Amazon S3

MAMP

Visibility:

Having a robust post launch strategy in combination with an agile user experience A/B testing is a vital component for how users find  content online and engagement is a driving factor making them comeback for more. With brands like The Washington Post being ported over to millions of amazon tablets in months ahead, visibility becomes a zero sum game.

But for smaller brands its all about finding the best platform in which to host our content. We need to know where our users hang out online.

Credibility:

The Washington Post is the paper of Watergate. There exist a high level of sophistication and journalist integrity behind the legacy of the paper. And how will Mr.Bezos  will expand the brand in a digital context is still unclear at this point. Since he believes all print publications will become obsolete within 2o years from now. And I happen to to join him only to say it may be sooner.

As a content producer I often think hard of the dilemma behind creating credible content online. As integrity and transparency must work in unison in able for our users to trust what we say.

Next Steps:

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