Jordan Braz | May 25th, 2015

Action camera-maker GoPro buying a virtual reality company. Verizon shelling out $4 billion for AOL to engineer a mobile video revolution. Facebook giving media giants the opportunity to publish directly on its platform via the Instant Articles initiative. With all this going on, it's no surprise we're seeing a lot of articles like this one (http://read.bi/1PrNZ2H) announcing that the age of content has arrived. Again.

It’s not much use to have a fantastic distribution tool or network without any content to call your own -- hence Verizon's determination not to become a 'dumb pipe' that does nothing but deliver other companies' intellectual property (and ad traffic). At the same time, content needs an audience, and content creators will increasingly be forced to work with the giants of social media to reach the biggest ones. Facebook's reach is massive and the terms for its Instant Articles service are fairly generous, so signing up seems like a no-brainer for publishers -- hence why marquee names like the New York Times and National Geographic are among the early adopters. And while Facebook can (and probably will) change the terms later, it will still need well-known producers of credible content for its foray into news to succeed, meaning publishers will always have retain a certain amount of leverage.

That said, it's inevitable that by coming to the content via Facebook's platform many users will associate what they read or watch via Instant Articles with the Facebook name and ecosystem, even if the original publishers plaster their names and fonts all over it. More people will be telling each other about the stories or videos they saw "on Facebook" and not necessarily mentioning the original producer of the content -- much like happens with with Youtube now. Publishers are therefore, unwittingly or not, helping build Facebook's credibility as a media and publishing force its own right, and may be weakening their future negotiating position with Facebook and clout with consumers. Count on Facebook eventually forcing Instant Articles, regardless of where they come from, to conform to a more unified look or style to accelerate this process.

Distribution is important, but in the interests of balance (and self-preservation) content creators may not need to pursue reach above everything else; a bigger audience doesn’t necessarily mean more engagement, subscribers or dollars. Consistently producing top-notch material for a smaller, more receptive group of followers can be a more effective way to build loyalty and a reputation, and distribution (at least to start with) can be as simple a matter as using the industry or personal networks you’re already part of. Social media has produced some behemoths, but it’s also a great leveller, allowing content producers to reach a wide number of people without riding another brand or technology’s coattails. On the other hand for distributors or platforms (like Verizon, and Facebook) it’s nowhere near as easy to find a consistent, freely available and largely automated source of relevant content (yet). Content might not be king -- but it’s got a healthy amount of sovereignty.

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