#content evolution

One problem with communicating via these small mouth noises is that you are limited by the volume your voice can create. Before the invention of megaphones or television, you could only communicate your thoughts to a few people in your general vicinity. Like the children's game "Telephone", any attempts to reiterate your message by another party led to the degradation of your original concept, thereby limiting it's spread.

Take another form of communication- writing. Until quite recently in our species' history, reading and writing was not a common skill set. Only the very wealthy or those part of organized religions had the money and the time to learn how to read and write. On top of this, paper, books, and ink were expensive, as was distributing your literary works. 

You would be right to say that before the internet, television was the behemoth of communication, and I would agree. I would argue, though, that before the Internet Age the cost of producing and distributing video made it a rare form of individual expression for our species.

Late in the 1960's a few brilliant minds dreamed up the internet, which within a few short decades undeniably revolutionized how our species communicates. With very little effort and money, one can use this "internet" to create a blog post, a video, a Vine, a podcast, or even a tweet, and potentially share this content with the entire world.

The problem with this new form of communication is that everyone with a computer and access to the internet has the same ability to share their ideas. Due to the massive amount of content created on a daily basis, it is highly likely your voice and your content will be lost adrift in a sea of digital works. 

In this digital landscape teeming with content, only the content that is most appealing will "survive" and be able to communicate the idea it represents. Look at cute cat videos as an example. Someone is sitting at home and sees their cat sleeping on a pillow and thinks, "That's so cute. Obviously, I must share this cuteness with the world." Like every single other crazy cat person in the world, this person records this cute cat event somehow and posts it on the internet.

Now here's the crux of my argument. Every single crazy cat person out there has the choice of how to share this banal experience with others. They can use written word(a blog post), spoken word(a podcast), images, or mixed media(video with sound and images).

The form of communication they chosse dictates how well their content "survives" on the internet and successfully presents an idea. Think about it from your own perspective. Which content would you find most appealing: a page long blog post about how cute kittens look when they wake up or a 1 minute video of someone waking up their kittens?

Chances are, like me, you want to see the kitten video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXLXhUJ6_Q8

Unless the kitten blog post was written by Shakespeare, you can bet that most people would choose to watch the video. In this example, the kitten video is a better fit and has a higher chance of "surviving" and fulfilling it's role of communicating the concept that kittens are adorable after a nap. If you apply this evolutionary survival model to all content on the internet, you can understand why certain forms of communication seem to be more popular than others. Poorly designed content "dies" and is rarely seen again, while engaging and well designed content thrives and is able to pass on a message.

All of this theorizing might seem like a fun intellectual pursuit, but it actually has a significant impact on the choices you make as a marketer. Take for example the spread of internet video. Cisco Systems recently released a report predicting that internet video will make up 84% of internet traffic in 2018:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/10/us-internet-consumers-cisco-systems-idUSKBN0EL15E20140610

Even if this report has been greatly exaggerated and video would only make up 60% of traffic, that's still a big slice of the pie. Don't get me wrong: video is not the perfect marketing solution by any means. I have chosen to communicate my "the internet as an evolutionary platform for content" theory with you via the written word because I felt this medium would communicate my idea most effectively. 

I'm not here to push you towards a particular form content- the point of this article is to get you thinking about how best to communicate your concepts and ideas with other humans. 

That being said, when in doubt, video is your best bet.

Article by: Jamie Binns, Social Media

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