We’ve all heard the cries, and maybe even uttered them ourselves. “There’s just too much information, I can’t possibly keep on top of it all.” Well, the gods heard you and they laughed. Welcome to the age of compound content growth.
Photo by Flickr user Marc_Smith, licensed under Creative Commons: http://flic.kr/p/9wb1AR
Cloud computing, shared devices, device integration and multi-platform engagement are all booming. So, too, is the multiplicity of content engines and content sources.
Yes, this makes quality and relevance of content even more important than it has been previously. But, managed correctly, it also yields a huge benefit for brands: data, data, data.
The information about all the content moving across those devices – who’s accessing it, their consumption habits, meta-data, and all that juicy metric goodness – is poised to become the core of the interest graph. Application providers and app marketplaces are integrating with social platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like at lightning speed. As they do so, it’s imperative that marketers examine the overall interest ecosystem and define the content fusion model for their brands.
As the cloud and devices get smarter about content and its consumption, brands will find it more important (and, in theory, easier) to know exactly where to deliver content and how. It’s all about being on the right platform, on the right device, at the right time, for the right customer. The integration of location based services layer adds regional and geographic nuance on top of everything else.
Who’s consuming what? When are they consuming it? Who are they with when they consume it? Where are they? What devices are they using? These are just some of the questions brands will be able to answer – if they have the right relationships with everyone from hardware manufacturers, content producers and app stores to content distribution services that maintain the data about the data.