Content Matters

I am starting a new list on Content Matters, of Emerging Content Technologies.

There are so many compelling new things happening in the content technology space that I felt it would be helpful to catalog and share them. Many of these companies are what are commonly referred to as “Web 2.0” products such as tagging, vertical search, social software, RSS, mashups and related technologies. 

Why not simply include these in my existing list of the “50 Content Companies that Matter”? The main reason is that the characteristics of these companies are very different from most of the companies on that list. Most of these are early stage companies. While their concepts are intriguing, as innovators, they may not be the ones who eventually emerge as market leaders when these technologies are adopted. Some of these companies will not make it; others will be acquired by Google, Yahoo or others along the way.

Many in “traditional” content companies may wish to overlook these companies; after all, few of these companies have made inroads in the b2b market. It’s true that teenagers are bigger users of mashups and social software today than business users. But, traditional publishers should ignore them at their peril. These companies and their offspring are the ones who will be taking your market share in the years to come. To that end, wherever appropriate, I will share my thoughts on the relevancy of these technologies to more traditional content businesses. My recommendation to you is that you play with these various applications, making sure that you understand them, then think about how they might impact your business in the years to come.

The first post in this new series is on Last.fm. 

As always, I welcome your feedback and suggestions.