MediaVidea

How bad a word is 'Content'?

Unlike its more distinguished brethren including blog, blogosphere, and wiki, which hold the promise of something new, the word "content" may be responsible for reducing the once respected art of writing and reporting to a debased and generic form.

I don't know what it is with you but the word, here in India conjures up images of factories and sweatshops.

Rewriting outfits masquerading as blog networks, made for adsense sites, online marketing outfits and publishing outsourcing services, among other avatars, who routinely advertise looking for content writers and freelance writers with a bachelor's degree and make shift English.

You see few classifieds looking for reporters and journalists.
What do you need degrees for when all you need is an ox-like strength to rewrite 15 articles in 8 hours?

Content Developer means someone with 2 + years of rewriting existing articles - making active to passive and vice versa.

Content Manager means someone who can manage a team of rewriters who fill hundreds of pages in the latest travel portal.

I should know. I first cut my teeth into online publishing by landing the job as a editor at an outfit that shall remain unnamed for obvious reasons.

David Callaway of MarketWatch, writes about the "C" word on the 10th anniversary of Marketwatch.com

"Content" is a horrible word, snagged from the bowels of the dictionary by the same Internet marketing folks who gave you "B2B," "hard stop" and "digital solutions." Its primary definition is something that is contained, such as the contents of a bag of dog food, or the contents of a bottle of valium. Or the contents of your retirement account. News is the last thing that can be contained -- especially online news.

Ultimately, it is the nature of all words to be reduced to content.
Long live Google adsense.

Thnx to Romenesko for the link

Labels: advertising. online advertising, news 2.0, trends

posted by Pramit Singh @ 1:16 PM