Is CONTENT overrated?
An obvious question, if you could see everyone humming about content. Be it social media, the internet, YouTube, research institutes, or media houses, everyone is busy consuming or creating some form of content.
A few decades back, when the internet wasn’t this normal, a car manufacturer produced just cars and distributed them in the market—barely involving much content creation. Or a software company creates just software and sells it in the market; not much content is needed along with the product.
But after the internet, everything changed—the market and the marketing.
Nothing happened overnight. Of course, this transformation of marketing patterns wasn’t a minor adjustment, and therefore, gradually, with various new technologies, methods, and jobs, the importance of content grew to a level never before.
Interestingly, in 1996, Bill Gates estimated all this very precisely and wrote an essay titled “Content is King.” If you read that article now, you might feel as if Bill Gates was looking into the future and reporting on the present day of content.
Now we have the question: Is content still king? And why is it acting like a king? And how long will this regime continue? The future of content?
This article is for all these discussions. More than facts, it’s about the personal opinion of the author. Feel free to share your opinions in the comment section.
What makes the content king?
The obvious answer is “internet.” However, the internet alone isn’t the thing that makes content king.
The modern digital era has been aligned in a way that supports or leverages content in greater proportions. For example, companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram were aligned in such a way that content became the key to their success. Furthermore, the consumption rate of content by the consumers of the market aligned the entire market toward content.
Currently the situation has even extended its arms to political arena. Example: A few tweets can bring turmoil into the political structure of a country, which is nothing more than content on a platform on the internet.
In short, content has its grip on all the aspects of human survival: economical, social, political, financial, psychological, medical, etc.
Being dependent on content for everything is what makes content king.
Future of content
The Internet world is very volatile and dynamic in nature. The market is ever-changing. Every day is different from the previous day. It’s becoming really difficult to predict the future of content with as much precision as before.
For example, Google is the most renowned and powerful company dealing with content and searches. However, the recent launch of Chat GPT made everyone wonder, “Is this the end of Google?” However, it’s not so easily possible, but it’s really interesting how the world’s most powerful company comes into question with a new invention.
The entire system of content distribution is based on the internet, so what if the internet collapses someday? However, there are alternatives, and if the stage collapses, it will take down everything along with it.
If any kind of brain-to-brain (Neuralink) communication replaces the text dependency or audio and visual dependency for communication, Although this may be very far in the future, a lot of research is already in progress, which can’t be denied.
The number of global online users has increased to 5.6 billion, with an average screen time of 6 hours, 37 minutes. This is expected to increase further. Similarly, 4.6 billion people are active on social media on average for 2 hours, 37 minutes.
The concept of “metaverse” which has recently gained global popularity, introduces technologies to make the user experience far more immersive. If that becomes a global reality, a new 3D content trend will become a reality.
Conclusion
Content isn’t going anywhere. New methods and immersive mediums of creation and consumption of content will be introduced in the market with new technologies and market demand.
The demand for content writers and content creators will remain high. And this is what we will discuss in the next blog, “opportunities for content writer.“
