Content Is King (1996)
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Content Is King (1996)
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Re: Content Is King (1996)
#2"If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will."
Incredible how far we've come from "put up with turning on a computer."
"But within a year the mechanisms will be in place that allow content providers to charge just a cent or a few cents for information. If you decide to visit a page that costs a nickel, you won't be writing a check or getting a bill in the mail for a nickel. You'll just click on what you want, knowing you'll be charged a nickel on an aggregated basis."
I can't decide if this sort of micropayment-driven internet would be heaven or hell.
Re: Content Is King (1996)
#3It's fascinating to me that Gates correctly described the content we would see and the problems in monetizing it, but was totally off base in predicting we would have any of it fixed by now.
Content is king, and sites with content richer than plaintext have done substantially better. Advertising has done well, and long-term subscription models continue to drive down user counts. The line about "attract attention, not convey information" was a prescient look at a world of shitty, flashing banner ads. He missed subscriptions for premium features, but it's a subtle difference.
On the other hand, ads still cripple the speed of page loads - smart advertising has added weight as fast as internet speeds have improved. Per-use transaction fees still haven't caught on (except in freemium games) because they encourage users to not consume content, and because no one trusts a central authority to set them up. Ultimately, ads are the only effective small-charge technique anyone has found.
He was spot-on with the problems the web faces, but wrong in thinking they'd be solved by now.
Re: Content Is King (1996)
#4Which was more prescient, this or "Content is Not King"? http://firstmonday.org/article/view/833/742
In many ways, it seems like Microsoft's late-90's obsession with content didn't really pan out. Sure, MSNBC is still around but sidewalk.com long since evaporated. It doesn't seem like MSFT really became a profitable media company.
But look at how many multi-billion dollar "unicorns" are messaging companies.
Re: Content Is King (1996)
#5"If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will." Incredible how far we've come from "put up with turning on a computer." "But within a year the mechanisms will be in place that allow content providers to charge just a cent or a few cents for information. If you decide to visit a pag…
Facebook, Gmail, Google, etc., already do this, charging advertisers nickels to blast people using those platforms.
Re: Content Is King (1996)
#6> In the long run, advertising is promising... But today the amount of subscription revenue or advertising revenue realized on the Internet is near zero-maybe $20 million or $30 million in total.
Look how far we've come.
Re: Content Is King (1996)
#7"If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will." Incredible how far we've come from "put up with turning on a computer." "But within a year the mechanisms will be in place that allow content providers to charge just a cent or a few cents for information. If you decide to visit a pag…
Facebook, Gmail, Google, etc., already do this, charging advertisers nickels to blast people using those platforms.
I would classify Facebook and Google as advertisers themselves, but that's semantics, I guess. Point taken.
There are effectively two classes of internet citizens: those who block ads, and those who do not. Users like myself free ride off the eyeballs of this second class.
Imagine if ad-blockers were included in internet browsers by default. It would cripple the economics of the internet. (Is this the explicit reason for Chrome? Because it look like a great defensive maneuver.)
Re: Content Is King (1996)
#8For video, meaning shows and movies, content is king.
For music and writing, distribution is king.
Re: Content Is King (1996)
#9This was written in a time before things like the Ice Bucket Challenge. It was inconceivable to think of that as powerful content that would generate millions of unique views.
Content is king, but what Gates could have never guessed was what type of content.
Re: Content Is King (1996)
#10We spend far more time consuming content generated by our friends and family then we do consuming content created by media companies. I don't think he could conceive that a company like Facebook could control the means of distribution by providing something that people want more the professional media.