The world is awash with content.
Barriers to entry have fallen away allowing anyone with something to say to publish it and LLMs are enabling people to churn out plentiful passable content, very cheaply.
With so much content around and when, says Colin Morrison, “the good stuff and the bad stuff looks the same”, how can professional publishers stand out from the crowd?
Morrison was moderating a panel discussion at last week’s PPA Independent Publisher Conference, entitled ‘A return to journalism: the next generation’. On the panel were Aliya Itzkowitz (strategy manager, FT Strategies), Jess Swinburne (senior development producer, Tortoise Media) and Rebecca Taylor (commercial content editor, William Reed).
The panelists came up with a number of suggestions, to which I have added a couple of my own...
Publishers should focus on:
- Quality; being better than everyone else.
- Trustworthiness and authenticity; being honest, open and transparent. Avoiding trickery.
- Those elements of content not easily replicated by LLMs or cowboy operators: story telling, analysis, commentary, narrative.
- Elevating their talent. Human talent is professional publishers’ USP. It should be brought to the fore.
- Building a community. People want to be part of something, to meet and connect with other like-minded people. AI currently struggles to deliver this...
- Polishing their brand; making quality, trusted content central to their brand values, and doing nothing that might imperil that.
- Being manifestly different. This might involve deploying stylistic signals and innovations, so that good content is more easily recognisable.
- Education; working with trade associations and governments to ensure that tomorrow’s consumers are educated to be self-sufficient digital citizens who can spot good content and know its value.
The surfeit of content out there is both a challenge and an opportunity for professional publishers. Yes, increased competition but also increased need for quality content. Our task is two-fold — to provide it and to be found.
Pictures from the PPA Independent Publisher Conference and Awards can be seen here.
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