Photo by Sebastian Prooth, Flickr Creative Commons
The internet is shit. Those are not my words, they were taken from this website (as pointed out in a tweet by Julien Smith). The catch phrase might be a bit strong, but the guy (or girl) has a point – what the hell happened to content on the web? Is the internet now all about bullet lists and Top something guides? User-generated content? What happens when everyone is referencing everyone? Are we all stuck in a infinite loop of crap?
I would not say that all is bad on the web; there are truly some amazing gems scattered here and there, you just have to look for them. Having been raised with the internet, it is very much a part of my social identity and personal mythology. Nowadays, I would also have a hard time defining our civilization without including the web (and its content). So if the content on the web is mostly crap, what does it say about our societies? Is the web getting worse or is it just an illusion? Who’s responsible for content? Users? Web developers? Bloggers? Social platforms? Everyone? Was the web 2.0 just a gimmick or an internet revolution?
There was this article on A List Apart a few days ago, also on content. It might help shines some light on this subject matter. Kristina Halvorson, the author, raises this question:
Do you think it’s a coincidence, then, that web content is, for the most part, crap?
Dealing with content is messy. It’s complicated, it’s painful, and it’s expensive.
And yet, the web is content. Content is the web. It deserves our time and attention.
So how come so little attention is given to content by web developers? I haven’t got a lot of professional experience working with web design companies as of yet, but what I’ve seen so far is disarming. A lot of resources are being put into building a site structure, defining the design elements and getting funding, but somehow there are no resources nor money to build content. Nada. I don’t even think this is something that was considered, as if a site’s design was enough to attract people, and that those same people were going to generate the content they were looking for in the first place.
This is wrong.
I was talking last week about the pyramid of SEO, and how accessible and quality content was at the basis of a search engine optimization strategy. So what happens when you’ve got your foundations all wrong? But most of all, why oh why are we so afraid to get our hands dirty with the production of content?
Because it is messy. And difficult.
Creating great content is hard and time-consuming. I myself am struggling to find time to write interesting posts on this blog. There’s a lot of research involved, you need to take time to think about what to write, and how you’ll write it. In that respect, it is very much like being back at university and having to write all those essays (again). If the web had to be reviewed by one of my teachers, I wonder if it would get a pass mark or not…
People in crowds are supposed to get stupider. Is the same happening on the web? Are folks pleased with the state of the internet? Please comment!
A List Apart’s article concludes this way:
Stop pretending content is somebody else’s problem. Take up the torch for content strategy. Learn it. Practice it. Promote it. It’s time to make content matter.
This is exactly what I’m intending to do.