I'm Just Sharing

Let me get this out of the way. I don’t like Rupert Murdoch. I don’t like almost anything he stands for. I believe he’s pretty much a greedy man who likes stirring up controversy because he knows it sells. I believe he skews the news, not because he actually believes any of it, but because it makes money. I’m not against anyone making money, ever; I don’t have to like how some people make it, though.

However, if there’s one thing I am is fair when I have to be. And, of all things, Murdoch recently said something that I’ve touted in my own way for years, though my thoughts have been a little more limited on the subject. And that subject is content.

I’ve always said I believe that content is king, and I really believe that. On the blogosphere, that always turns into a debate, and it might even turn into a debate here as well.

Let’s first see what Murdoch has to say. In essence, he loves all this new technology, and all the media companies that he owns. He sees the value in all of them. Bu the also says that not a single one of them means anything without content. His news services mean nothing without content; his TV channels and his movie studios mean nothing without content. People are ready to either pay for the content or use the content to help them make money. In his words,

“The value of content is now clear. Content is not just king. It is the emperor of all things electronic. But this clever technology is merely an empty vessel without any great content. Without content, the ever larger and flatter screens, the tablets, the e-readers and the increasingly sophisticated mobile phones would be lifeless.”

I hate to say this, but it doesn’t get any clearer than that. There are literally more than a hundred million blogs out in the world, and those that have a chance to grow and proliferate all have content. Not all of the content is great, but there’s a lot of it. Notice, he never said the content had to be great in quality, but it does have to be great in quantity. Of course, I’ve always believed if you’re not going into it without hoping to provide great quality, don’t do it at all.

In my guise as an internet marketing consultant for small businesses (as opposed to an affiliate marketer who can’t seem to make more than $100 a month online), I work with them in trying to convince them that having a website is a great thing, but without adding more content, or having active content that keeps people coming over and over, or at least the search engines, that their sites will stagnate, and the best SEO in the world won’t keep them going. Imagine if a movie studio put out the greatest movie in history, then kept showing that same movie over and over. Okay, so I’ve seen Rocky Horror Picture Show about 40 times live; it wasn’t because of the movie, but more because each week the people who came to the show changed up, and you never know what they were going to do. In essence, that was my content changing rather than increasing, but it was still new content nonetheless.

That’s one reason why I write as often as I do. I could probably be doing okay with only 3 posts a week, and when I get busy that might be what I drop to; after all, actually making money is always more important, right? However, I have found that I like writing more, and when my content is higher my visitor rate is higher. That, plus look at all the great stuff I get to link to that I’d never have if I hadn’t written so much in so many places.

So, content is no longer just king; it’s an electronic emperor. And this emperor doesn’t need clothes either.

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