Top 8 Content Platforms

You might have noticed I blog. I don't do this for profit, I do it because I love to write.  

I'm feeling the void and the pain of being a writer in a progressively less literate society. Journalists are being fired, poetry is no longer read, machine learning algorithms can put together a lot of repetitive articles humans once wrote, and competition in content marketing is fierce. Not only is it fierce, it's ugly, I'll just be honest here and say what some of you are thinking, most copywriters don't seem to be any good. Harsh? Maybe. I think short attention spans of the mobile attention economy have changed the form and content of the online article. 

Publishing and News media will never be the same 

With the relative fall of publishing and paper media, in a time when good writers are needed more than ever, there aren't even decent platforms to hone your craft. You see, I'll be the first to admit it, I'm not a real writer. I'm a pure amateur, without any degree in it, just a writer by inclination and hobby. But we are entering an age of content marketing, every year digital marketers are saying they are investing more into content. But where are they going to get decent writers and where are okay writers going to become good writers? So let's establish the point, we are in an era of content marketing. In some respects, this means a lot of sales speak junk, accessory fluff and click-bait. 

When even Google gets it wrong and seems "dumber", you know the quality of content on the web is in free-fall! 

Not surprisingly this has lead to a lot of bad content, even Google gets it wrong with silly outdated "Top 5" this or that dominating the rankings. You know the web and literacy is in trouble when google seems dumber, isn't it? Do I really want to be reading yahoo news or Huffington post articles? This is a problem if you actually want to learn from the web about specific topics or want a good outlet to write. 

Corporate blogs rarely produce truly helpful or useful information or content. 

The majority of corporate blog articles are so skewed to a brand's USP and inundated with links that are good for SEO, but spoil reading, it's hard to find articles that you want to read all the way through. I want to read something that just isn't about sales, but of actual value to my intelligence. Increasingly I rarely find this, and it's starting to seriously bother me. 

I myself will likely migrate to more creative mobile apps and not hang out as much as I once did on the PC interface web. It's primarily because I want to work the new media, I don't want to spend lifetimes going through the motions. My poetry blog has over 6,000 supposed followers and I assure you, that's from a lifetime of use. But enough about me, where to go and blog and write? My answers might surprise you. 

Where to Write, that is the question. 

If you are a writer of value useful content and learning from others in your industry, niche field or particular interests I suggest to you the following: 

1) Quora:

This Q&A website is data-mining of the most human kind, with experts giving you qualified and sometimes very customized answers to your queries, high on education rating, pointless to blog on and maybe useful to cross-sell and lead gen on. Time spent on Quora, is time well spent. 

2) Medium:

Twitter endorsed site with community driven backbone and limited customization abilities. The verdict is, it's useful maybe from time to time, since there doesn't seem to be much better around at the moment. 

3) Instagram 

Below your darling selfies, travel pics, your pet and food & fashion you like, you do realize you can write text, create a story even with the #hashtags you use. So do it, try to combine visual story telling (even quotes) with actual text and dialogue narrative. I was surprised to see there is a whole underground scene of writers on Instagram. 

4) Reddit: 

Popular among young Millennial men Reddit's fame and infamy are in its huge user base and lack of moderation. It's hideous user interface is made up for by its clever user generated content and up and down voting which ensures a kind of symmetry and quality where quality content rises to the top. If you can call it content?

5) Wordpress Blog:

Great for your own brand if you don't mind the anonymity and somewhat barren landscape. Wordpress remains the best site for blogging, SEO but with its latest update for mobile, the UI especially when reading by topic, is atrocious to say the least. It's hard to beat Wordpress's editor and analytic though and relatively easy to gain a following. An increasing number of websites are in Wordpress now. 

6) LinkedIn Pulse:

Supposedly your professional network may have some people in your field, and you may actually learn from each other in a community, it's unlikely, but it isn't unheard of. Maybe they even do some content marketing that makes it a good idea to read about the trends. If you don't write about "leadership" and other very pop-psych, current news or pseudo-professional topics, don't expect to get many views. 

The influencer scheme makes the content of chosen "influencers" (think reality-TV here) featured automatically, regardless of the utility or quality of their content, and quite often it's more than suspect. 

7) Tumblr 

Micro blog par excellence with huge young user base is now Yahoo owned. Useful for short blogs, micro videos and just whatever. Mobile or web, more substantial content than Instagram, and hybrid of visual content and text and PC/mobile. Definitely worth being on, but not inspiring. 

8) Notable Mention: 

Ghost

Digg

Silvrback

Postagon

Squarespace 

Michael Spencer writes about innovative startups among other digital marketing & futurism topics. If you have a startup for him to look into, let him know below in a comment.