| Media Hoarders: An Uncluttered View of Media Fragmentation
It’s everywhere we look.
The media and marketing industries call it fragmentation. Everyone else calls it clutter.
Fragmentation describes a specific media phenomenon; clutter describes a specific lifestyle phenomenon. Fragmentation describes the journey, whereas clutter describes the destination. It’s no coincidence therefore that as the media landscape has gotten more crowded, the advertising space within that landscape has followed suit.
Does the fragmentation of the media channels translate into increased clutter by definition? Can we maintain order in our lives with such apparent chaos in the media? And when the average American spends almost half of each day consuming media -- and spends more on media than on groceries each month -- how do we distinguish between the clutter in our heads and the clutter in our lives?
The primary function of media agencies nowadays is to deal effectively with the fragmentation of media, to cherry-pick 100 or 200 avails from a total universe of 300 million candidates. However, if the current state of the media landscape -- characterized by sub-$1 CPMs and clickthrough rates of statistical zero -- is any indication, one might conclude that dealing effectively with the fragmentation of the media channels works far better in theory than in practice.
So if media consumption is such a large part of consumers’ lives, and media is in chaos, what can we, those who create media, do to help consumers remove the clutter from their lives and return to simplicity?
The answer is, instead of contributing to the fragmentation and clutter, we need to fight against it, with our own high-quality content that provides consumers with simple, effective solutions to their everyday challenges.
Instead of elbowing for space, content syndication presents itself as a breath of fresh air. The reason? Better content, created by the increased reach and revenue opportunity that comes with placing content on more than one destination. Syndicated content is of high quality because it has to be -- instead of satisfying the criteria of one editor, it must satisfy the criteria of many editors, sometimes with distinct needs and requirements.
Not only that, but syndicating content allows us to gain a wider range of insights than content creators get on fixed sites. Audiences on different sites consume content differently, enabling us to tailor our approach so our content appeals to more people. Instead of one set of eyes on a single destination, we have eyes all over the marketplace that help us stay current.
The value that we bring -- better content in more places -- is going to become even more crucial in the future because fragmentation and clutter, despite whatever deleterious effects they have, are likely to continue to grow.
The real enabler of media fragmentation has been affordable access to high-speed bandwidth. Since everyone can upload as well as download, it’s a foregone conclusion that there would be that much more media in the world.
So what is the likely future of bandwidth? Will it become more or less widely accessible and affordable? For now, most signs point to more access. For one thing, there are still a number of undeveloped markets where access is currently quite limited. Many of those markets will acquire more access in the near future. Second of all, in developed markets, municipal, state and federal tax abatements galore fuel and fund the expansion of bandwidth.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to redouble our efforts and continue to deliver what users want: high-quality information that is easy to find. If we are successful, the world may become a simpler, less noisy place.
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