Commentary

Extreme Publishing And Connected Customer Communication Defined

According to material from Adotas, and reported by John Philpin in a Lyris blog, we are living in a golden age of massive creativity with people creating and publishing their work directly to their audience. But we, the audience, have to work harder to find it. And we, the audience, have to recognize that to create something takes someone’s time, creativity, and skill, and it cannot be free.

Publishing is not dead – it is just redefining itself, says the report.

  • How we listen to and absorb news has radically changed.
  • How writers make money out of their writings and opinion has radically changed. 
  • And there is a plethora of solid news, opinions, and columns on all kinds of topics imaginable to be found by the discerning reader.

But ‘Big Publishing’ for the most part is attempting to hang on to the model that they know and love because it created so much money for them – not necessarily the creators. Publishers are experimenting with pay-walls to ensure their content is not ‘given away’, cluttering their websites with adverts to help pay for their empires and a host of other tricks that simply make readers go away, says the report.

The writer says that publishers’ current business models are too often positioned at the bottom of the value chain. Switching the power from a broadcast/blitz/blast communication style of the traditional media industry to a more considered, engaged, conversational style that embraces dialog that consumers prefer, is where publishers can drive value at the edges.

Publishers, therefore, says the report, have to think differently about their business and their relationships with their audiences. Connected customers are powering a seismic shift in business models and as long as traditional media operates in a linear model of value creation acting like gatekeepers they will be left behind by networks that connect the right content to the right user.

Any business that wants to pursue ‘true differentiation’ needs to establish a product that, in the mind of the consumer, is markedly and undeniably different. Niches don’t scale; they go deep. ‘All you can eat’ strategies are ultimately suited for content that is broadly appealing and are a bad idea for anything with a limited but intensely interested audience… a way to limit the audience and the commercial value, says the report.

The future is not about the brand, but is about the customers, the people, the individuals. ‘Extreme Publishing,’ concludes the report, is the future and allows for reliable and consistent content to be sent at the right time, to the right place, with the right preferences, device, context … and anything else considered to be relevant.

That is what a connected customer communication platform is all about, says Philpin.

To view the complete blog, please visit here.

 

 

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