The Dilution of Compelling Content

I remember my Grandmother explaining to me one evening as we gathered in front of the large piece of living room furniture with the black and white glass screen beaming brightly and lighting up the room so we could catch the evening news broadcast. Her explanation was about how much the world had changed. She explained how, when she was a young girl, they only time you would get updated on the world’s events was when you made your way to the movie theater. News reels were produced and played before your feature. This was the way compelling content found its captive audience back in the day. I remember her shaking her head and muttering how much the times have changed. As technology progressed and content was delivered directly to our homes, the news was soon consumed from our living room, at first, one evening a week. Then the content creators, the television networks, realized they could create more content and make more money, so the news was on every evening. During that evening with my Grandmother she said something that stuck with me for some reason. “Why do we need to know what happens from one day to the next? Can’t they just provide a summary of what happens every week or month? It’s just too much”! Fast forward a decade and we find ourself in 1980. Once again content creators and broadcast networks are looking for ways to create and deliver more content so they have more product to sell. Enter CNN and the 24/7 news cycle. A constant stream of news by the minute. Real time. The pulse of the world’s event at your finger tips… or at least on your television screen ( for the moment). We could sit and watch wars unfold, celebrity car chases, anything and everything you could want…. all the time. That said, at that time we, as content consumers, still had to engage the content proactively. We have to turn the tv on, set the channel and make the choice to consume. As technology progressed, as did content delivery mechanisms and models. Fast forward a few more decades and we find ourselves in the digital age. Content creators now have exponentially more delivery mechanisms for their content. And, these delivery “channels” are no longer passive. They can push content to the consumer based on data and profiles of what they believe is compelling to the individual. We are flooded with content. 24/7 news on our phones, on our computers, on the radio, oh, and yes, on that old TV. In addition, the tech has given birth to new forms of content, reality programming, user generated content ( YouTube, TokTok) battling the dinosaurs of creation for air time. We are now inundated with content. From the moment we wake to the moment we sleep. This endless abundance of content channels has creators desperately trying to fill the airwaves, continuously, with… something.?

As a result of this “progress” the rapid “Dilution of Compelling Content” is upon us. News networks must constantly create content to fill the time. To the point of even creating the story. Entertainment content producers are consistently trying to find new ways to entice and engage. Retailers are in a continuous loop of of data, analytics, advertising... pushing content they think we might be interested in. The result is a flood of content created for no reason other than to fill space. It's overwhelming and has impacted every facet of our lives. Our brains have so many open switches, consuming meaningless content from every direction, we are finding it more and more difficult to stay on task and focus,

If there is a silver lining in this ever flowing sea of content, it is the fact that technology has put the content consumer in charge of what to to consume.

So.... what does all this mean for Content Creators and others that create content consumption experiences across multiple channels?

Build experiences and provide content that is meaningful, relevant, purpose driven, important and accessible. Pin that up on your cork board. Challenge yourself at every decision point to ask if what you are creating, what you are working on, is compelling or is it just another drop of water in the sea of meaningless content.