Content On The Internet

1
Content On The Internet

• for Harish Pillay
• General Manager
• CONTACT Sembawang Media
• harish_at_contact.com.sg/h.pillay_at_ieee.org
• Pindar Wong
• pindar_at_hk.super.net

2
What is Content?

• Is NOT really the King - because of the
  ubiquity of the Net, most every one can publish.
  
• Compelling Information - the why why
  someone would want to visit your website? But,
  compelling is not an end in itself
• Familiarity - Supermarket-shelf layout breeds a
  sense of I know whats where. Do not change
  your website for the sake of change.

3
What is Content ?

• E.g. The original www.cnn.com site was
  friendly and fairly easy to navigate. Then, they
  changed it. Overnight, the site became difficult
  to manage. With strong feedback, CNN modified
  it. Shows the need to be conscious to
  familiarity of presentation.

4
Making Money from Content

• The Internets Holy Grail? Possibly. But with
  the preponderance of free information, what
  business model would this have?
• The push-model of content delivery looks more
  promising than the pull-model.
• Netcasting - a variation to the push-model will
  now be an integral feature of the next generation
  webservers.
• Once internet commerce infrastructure is in
  place, dont hope for the cash registers to ring
  - we are still some paradigm shift away from that.

5
Content Creation Infrastructure

• There are two models for this in-house staff
  with a complement of stringers or run an
  aggregation point for independent producers.
• The first model is a workable solution for
  traditional media publishers. A lot of newspaper
  and magazine companies are trying that
• The second model is harder to make money from
  and puts a lot of pressure on the aggregator to
  make the content happen.

6
Content Types

• Structural and Frivolous
• Structural content is like access to bank
  accounts and such similar type that has been
  available on non-Internet solutions like Frances
  Minitel. Once these content are available
  securely, you can tie in other types of content
  such as advertisements. The content consumers
  are unlikely to pay for this.
• Frivolous - who did Elvis sleep with last
  night? Surprisingly there is a large demand for
  such type of content and this would be
  potentially be paid for by the content consumer.

7
Conclusion

• Content on the Internet is still an amorphous
  entity.
• The business model for selling content is
  contingent on internet commerce infrastructure
  being established
• Niche content is what needs to be seriously
  looked at - people like to know that they share
  similar interests with others