AssetBrand Brand Asset Management
Content is king, they say... queen maybe, but not king. Application is king.
Till now this fact had no meaning for most companies except for software developers who have always known that application is more valuable than content. Everyone else has agreed that "content is king" because they've been unable to provide application. Industries outside of software development rely on content to stay ahead of the pack; but there is a subtle shift happening.
Users are saturated with content, there is content everywhere and it is being produced at staggering rates. Every user has their methods to get at the good stuff and ignore the trash but what they are hungry for is application. They have application on their devices and they expect application in the websites they use.
As an example compare an Amazon book search with a Borders one.
I can guarantee you within 2 clicks you will have 20 or more applications on the Amazon store compared to the same search on Borders.
Why? Because Borders gambled on the 'in-store' experience compared with the 'on-line' experience, and lost.
The good news is that application is becoming more accessible for web developers. Open source and content managed systems are now standard fare for websites. What is required is for website owners to answer a fundamental question.
"What do they want their website to do for their clients?"
Will it be an online store, a social site, a game or subtle game dynamics, an interactive calendar or comment module, a subscription, info or video feed, online and editable spreadsheet, calculator, CRM integration, the list goes on and on. If you can imagine a web application it is almost certain that someone has already written it and it's available somewhere really cheaply or free.
"Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter are not content providers, they are Content Web-Applications?"
But wait a minute, isn't Google just one big content providers, and Wikipedia another? Well, no! Google is not a content company at all and neither is Wikipedia, Facebook or Twitter; they are content applications, and as the web user develops a greater taste for application so Google will change their algorithms to rank application higher and higher, Twitter an Facebook will manipulate their application to better deliver the content.
I'm not suggesting that application will one day replace content, they are very different animals, and both are required for a successful website. But we are on the verge of the application wave for web development.
But application, not content, is king.
