Similar to the music, movie & publishing industries, the news industry appears to be well, done and quite over...

Just as entertainment industry is now locked in it's decades long and agonizing rebirth, and has long lost its grip over production and distribution... what makes the news industry believe it can maintain its hold over our airwaves, Facebook or Twitter feeds let alone maintain editorial control in this post-blog-o-sphere world? The "newsies" now finds themselves either colluding with their subjects or pathetically griping over lost market share to the plethora of all our other new news sources. 

In this delusional state "the press" lays licking the wounds it can no longer admit are, nor even perceive as fatal.

C'mon you good people of these inner-nets of ours. There has to be a business model, No? Perhaps these ancient old mastheads simply become the new news verification service; maybe they simply provide us a rubbery-stamp of validity, perhaps even just help us paint this din of opinion in colors that help us mix 'n match our favorite flavors to compliment the mad choices in our morning bean.

Of course this would not allow for the billion-dollar publishing houses NOR the rock-star journalist (sorry Wolf Anderson)... but maybe, just maybe there is a business model out there that can help stitch this together and aid in our cutting through the crap and put a few pennies into the pockets of the last of the very few people who, thankfully, are still out there and ready to give us "the story" - at least their sound interpretation of it.

Ideas?

...it's fun not being a "professional blogger" (see sidebar for more on that). Fun until you've collected too many things you'd like to say... Finding the time to grind open the "big trap" has become a real chore of late. No worries, it doesn't seem like the things I really want to wax and wane on about are going anywhere.

There'll be more on this and/or that sooner or later; in the meantime, I'll be keeping it to the tweets... I'll let you know when something "makes a splat" onto these pages..." All, six (?) of you.

A good buddy just reminded me... 'Tis so easy to cynically believe that these Facebookie hippity-happy birthday wishes have no meaning what-so-ever; that they're forced, that you were reminded of my birthday by nothing more than a robotically-marketing driven must-be-friendly brain-scrubbing "system"… in-genuine. 

But, why look at it that way? Why not say hey-ho and be happy that we now have these systems that attach us and keep us a little more together than we were that point in time some 10+ years before Fark-ster, My-Face and Space-twit… before I met the love of my life on MySpace and started raising our love-child right in front of mine & your faze...Book. After all, is it not human to be bitchin' over each others opinions; civilized to be keeping up with the doings of those we like to see do… is it not good to be friendly and sharing our happy hellos on vacation while in the midst of a somewhat bad not-quite-working-workday… Isn't it really quite nifty to be poking & peeking and seeing how well we're'll doin' and shouting out odd bits and pieces of helpful encouragements. I honestly think this shctuff is pretty damned, cool.

You've just been and/or are about to be hit with a bigger pile of gord-lovin', so I better preface this digital-hugin' & snugglin' with the legal pre-amble to my soon to be patently-traditional and oh-so-hopefully expected jack-assed sized bucket of cold icy water…

After recently reading some smart-assed old pun-dent ask: "...is social media making us stupid?"… The thought occurred, that's like asking why the grumpy-assed old and mad (internet) cat killed the (virtual) tweet-wordy-birdie; WE ALREADY WERE STUPID.

...if some see it as idiotically-robotic, well so be it. After 20+ years of workin' our asses polishing off this big mess Al Gore left us, my buddies, you and I, albeit not totally satisfied with it, should be wholy encouraged by how many gosh darn golly good folks are actually using it… AND it may only be the tinee-tiniest act of kindness to wish a hippy happy birthday, but as many, too many a meme after meme has reminded me here day after day… "all these simple little acts of kindness DO add up to a happier day" maybe even a month, quite possibly a year and hopefully, a more wonderful lifetime (no?)

Sigh... yet another meme tells me, that my being a young-man of fifty, oh my, goodness gracious, affords me an opportunity to not care what I say or worry at all what you think; Well quite honestly, I do, I just don't bloody well HAVE to and there in lay the difference…

And I do think it's swell that we're pals…

So, I thank you for your wishes; truly I do… thank you new-old buddy. Thank you I do :-) 

(now… lets get back at it and make this a bit better).

I do know a little bit about content and please don't take any of this the wrong way. I do adore content. I spent the better part of my early childhood career, ages 20 through 30 and then some, creating content, building platforms and/or outlets for the dissemination of content. I have made numerous now proven to be apparently meagre attempts to package content, re-purpose content and re-vitalize content across multiple content driven channels and have on many many occasions used my own particular takes on a form of a sort of content marketing strategy, mostly for the purpose of selling… more content. 

So it may be bit odd that at a well known-to-myself risk of being labelled some sort of a curmudgeon; I've recently found myself saying somewhat nasty sounding things about content and/or this whole "content marketing strategy" again. And again, trust me I know the value of content. I applaud the creation of content and I understand the use of content as an underlay this so-called social, search and search-social marketing... Strat-ortunity? It's just... this current particular search and search-social marketing content strategy seems one dimensionally focussed. AND, the sheer and brutal loudness of the current clarion call for more and more content, well folks, it kinda frightens me, ok, at least when I'm in a more melo-dramatic mood (merely worries me on most other days).

Like any english language word said three times in a row, content, content, content quickly looses it's meaning… I mean, are we happily satisfied yet?

We were each given the tools to create our own content at birth; given the tools to publish & distribute this content of ours in a more or less unfettered by "the powers that be" fashion, a mere 20 years ago. Many of us (present company excepted) have made very good use of the unfettered-ness of content publication & distribution and have littered the world with noble notions, solid opinions, good advice and well thought out thinkenings. So many more of us have helped get these noble notions out and about by posting, re-posting and re-tweeting them on and along through each and ever channel made available to us re-twee-posters. Listen, it's not really a fear of more content; it's just "more" (and then more) content for the sake of… and it is always for the sake of, with respect to content, which has me… worried, you? no?

Really? ...you want me to tell my most cherished clients that they need to shift their focus and begin putting herculean efforts and costly time toward creating publishing & distributing content for the sake of their edge-ranked-SEO rankings? Really? Is this my new pitch? Let me show you how to cut through all the clutter by creating our own… clutter? Am I to drag them to their doom, again? Can any one of us not see the inherent trouble-sums in this? Can we not extrapolate, whip out the spreadsheets at calculate how this all ends… up (ranked).

Backtracking for backlinks…

I do get it; and in all likelihood will be swept up and into it, with a half painted on smile no less (at least on those days I'm not focussed on other things; things like actually, you know, trying to sell sh…stuff)... I already do do content; am a part of this content renaissance and have been so since (not to brag or anything), since the first days of content-upon-the-nets. It is after all our content that defines us; it is the content we create, adore, promote and re-post that ties us to the tags the labels folks use to slot us, catalog us and file us under "will work with" (when the supply of peanuts is topped up). AND perhaps I am making too much of my own content over these worries of what we are doing with all this content. I'd really rather content end up as sullied as dare I say...

Perhaps we'll continue to find ways to filter all this content maybe even one day find ways to filter without filters that demand the need for even more content, and more filters. Maybe we'll reach a happily balanced stand-off… perhaps content will not go the way of, shall I say it so obviously… email marketing. Did I just lump social-search driven optimized content in with... dare I?

If I apear to be on some slow trotting high horse here, pay no heed. I'm just exercising my right to use this content venue of mine to express concern over something I truly believe in (again I do believe in content as a major component in all this), AND to generate more of my own content. That we will "blow it" once again, I have no doubt… but we've blown it before, and here we are, again.

My only request; may I ask your politely, before committing your content to this ever faster flowing spigot; ask yourself, does this content of yours have any meaning? Does it even have the slightest fragmented bits or piece of useful purpose beyond increasing a ranking. In that brief millisecond your content obtains it's presence upon the pinnacle of the ever growing pile; will that one person who half sees it go… aha (before re-posting it)? By all means, don't sweat over the question, goodness knows, you'll have no time for that… there is more content to be made. After all...

Sigh... all that content, just to say, I'm worried, or... keep your content meaningful folks. And for those content creators who view content as something to be counted... 50


                          Coming soon... maybe next. Let me tell you a... funny (er) story.