The 3 Options: Part 1
Original Content Manufacturer
There are three primary positions to play in the new game, with several supporting roles and special teams (that’s a thing, right? Special teams?). They are:
The content creator
The content aggregator-distributor
The hardware magnate
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The Content Creator
Used to be called: Influencer
What happened: It turned out people preferred the preview to the film
The phenomenon of the “influencer” can be traced back to the blogs of the early 2000’s, where talented people could obtain an audience for little cost to them. Companies capitalized on these early ego-beacons by providing free platforms for expression - and monetizing the audience through advertising. From there came the “microblogging” of Twitter and Vine, which influenced what we now call Social Media.
Have you noticed that social media isn’t social media anymore? That’s already happened. What happens next, what always happens next, is that companies will move into this space, a space currently dominated by individual artists and entrepreneurs, and commercialize it. You may not like it, but it’s still true: the new multichannel new media means that commercial content creators will have to either expand into the new channels, or be combined with other specialists into a content-creator chimera, or build their business plan around their faith in humanity.
Taking the core of every message and optimizing it for all of the people all of the time requires a prohibitive, and potentially mathematically impossible, investment.
If we want to win in the content-creator position, we’re going to need to start practicing a new set of skills and developing a playbook from scratch - because nobody’s done it before. Intuitively, we need to combine what works for influencers, what works for popular websites, and what’s attractive to advertisers and the content aggregators who are chasing them:
Influencers have mastered the art of personal branding and audience engagement. Their ability to create authentic connections with followers and deliver content that resonates on a personal level is invaluable - genuine or not. The most successful influencers understand their audience intimately and can adapt their content and tone to meet changing preferences.
Popular websites, on the other hand, excel in delivering a consistent user experience and maintaining a steady stream of high-quality content. They have honed the skills of search engine optimization, user interface design, and content curation. They may serve as trusted sources of information or entertainment, building long-term relationships with their audience.
Advertisers and content aggregators are increasingly focused on metrics such as engagement rates, audience demographics, and content relevance. They’re looking for deliver targeted exposure to specific audience segments. To survive, we need to be able to provide detailed analytics and demonstrate our ability to reach and influence desired audiences.
The reason nobody’s done this yet isn’t because I’m a visionary and the first one to think of it - it’s because it’s hard. People can only generate so much content, and every product that one group finds compelling will alienate another group. (Taylor Swift notwithstanding.) Also, companies are notoriously bad at this kind of thing - for a few reasons:
bespoke is expensive,
the long tail is low margin, and
consumers can detect, and will react to, disingenuousness immediately.
Taking the core of every message and optimizing it for all of the people all of the time requires a prohibitive, and potentially mathematically impossible, investment.
Except Honest Abe hadn’t heard of AI.
The way to win, in the Content Creator role, is to leverage the capability of generative AI to adapt and extend the core message. This is not the same as “let the AI write the news,” which no serious person is considering - it’s using the technology like good technology should be used: as a force multiplier and as decision support.
Our challenge is to get the incantations right in order to summon a Janus-headed Algernon - looking one way at the real-time consumption and context data, and simultaneously forging the message for the best possible audience.
Really, that’s all there is to it.