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Permalink Reply by Rory Brown on July 14, 2008 at 8:48am

I also asked this question on LinkedIn and am getting some great responses.

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/marketing-sales/advertising-promoti...

Interested to hear the thoughts of this community.

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Permalink Reply by OlegR on July 14, 2008 at 9:40am

Content is still king, only if you know how to manage it.
Many publishers today do not realize that their business is creating content, thus content is their main asset.
At the same time, from my personal experience, having spoken to majority of world's top publishers I realized that almost nobody knows how to be completely in control of their content... It's like being an oil company with tankers full of holes, or an airline company that forgot to install seats in its airplanes. Publishers produce content, thus producing value, and then they lose it because they don't know how to properly store it, manage it, use it, reuse it, and finally make money on it.

One of the smartest tools out there right now to take control of content are digital Asset management system.

The main idea for a digital asset manager is that since all of your assets reside in the same repository and are accessbile through whatever systems you are using (editorial, video servers, picture management systems, CMSes, etc.) - your assets are being reused more and more: republished, reused in the editorial process, syndicated, pushed to new channels like Kindle, iPhone, etc.). Thus content is not only the king, it is the king that makes much more money :)

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Convertito on July 23, 2008 at 2:40pm

Content is a puppet king. ISPs and the like truly hold the keys to the digital kingdom...He who controls the tubes, truly controls the content...

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Permalink Reply by Sharon Hill on July 31, 2008 at 11:25am

More than ever, I'd have to say. I am convinced this means that content sharing is crucial for those such as smaller community newspapers who still reign over their locale as the prime news source and the most feet on the street, but who want to provide new and valuable information consistently on the Web, even on their advertising pages. That's hard to do with a small staff.

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Permalink Reply by Robin McCabe on July 31, 2008 at 12:53pm

Content never was KING.
If a man sits in a forest and tells a story that no one hears, does it matter?
Content without acurate distribution is back ground noise.

A newspaper without a story that someone wants to read is a fish wrapper.

The the Web has become the equivalent of writing on the public bathroom wall.

A publishing firm can put together, informed stories and deliver them to the people who care.

Making a magazine or Newspaper is making something greater than the sum of the individual parts.

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Permalink Reply by Fred Faulkner on July 31, 2008 at 1:59pm

Maybe the question should be "Is unique content still king?" The combination of access and syndication have really put the squeeze on the value of content. Most of what web surfers see today is just commoditized content that is repeated on any number of sites. Uniqueness definitely is the lever to monetize content. I believe that unfortunately many readers have lost the ability to differentiate between the commoditized, homogenized version and truly unique content and are therefore unwilling to pay.

There is another thread (http://mediapro.foliomag.com/group/b2b/forum/topic/show?id=2133529%...) asking whether all content will be free one day. I think these questions are intertwined.

Tools mentioned by Oleg definitely add to the value of the overall experience of digital content and can accentuate the underlying value of that content. But as with advertising, if the content has no audience there is no value. It's up to the publisher and editors to make sure they are writing to an audience that values the content, which will keep content on the throne.

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Permalink Reply by Kerry Smith on August 21, 2008 at 8:23am

Quality content, however it is delivered, is the key to attracting an audience. An audience gives you the opportunity to monetize your content. Quality content + defined audience gives you "permission" and opportunity to leverage your content and expertise across multiple platforms because it earns you the credibility you need to be trusted. So, everything begins with good content. The challenge is in thinking about new ways to create, package and deliver it in a way that serves your audience and creates business opportunities.

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