This is a presentation I have done for my class in New Media Literacies

1. Is Content Still
King?
What is driving the growth of Digital
Media?

2. “Content is King”
Bill Gates 1996
 In a short essay written
at the beginning of 1996,
Bill Gates – Founder and
then CEO of Microsoft –
asserted that the
Internet – still young at
that time, would soon
become “…a
marketplace of ideas,
experiences, and
products - a marketplace
of content “
PDC 1996 Keynote with Bill Gates

3. Content is the motivation for
USING digital media
 Whether it is to communicate with friends
about an event, or research how to build a
patio – and then where to buy the materials,
people turn to the internet as a fast source of
information, content and a reference point
for actual physical goods
 Entertainment is delivered via the medium
and provides a destination or a result for
people
 News and text is distributed
 IMPORTANTLY ALL CONTENT CAN BE
SEARCHED FOR (provides motivation)

4. A counterpoint to McLuhan’s “The Medium Is the
Message”
“Each medium, independent of the content it
mediates, has its own intrinsic effects which are its
unique message.”
(Understanding Media, NY, 1964, p. 8)
 In his book Understanding
Media, the extensions of
man written in 1964,
Marshall Mcluhan
proposes that a medium
affects society not by the
content delivered through
it, but by the
characteristics of the
medium itself.

5. Case against Mcluhan
 Current technology cross breeds media –
movies watched on TVs, TV shows watched
on computer screens, books read on
iPads… but we do not see different impacts
on society based on the same content being
experienced on different mediums
 In the absence of fresh and updated content
we grow bored of the medium. In the
absence of content we stop using the
medium.

6. Social [Media] Is Content’s Best Friend
 “Publishers have struggled to find effective consumer offerings
online. But now a perfect storm of new models and prospects gives
confidence for many.
Robert Andrews, PaidContent

7. New Distribution of Content
The internet in general and social media in particular has developed into a
powerful distribution infrastructure for content
 “You can reach millions of people that way,
just from making something someone wants
to share with someone. There’s an
opportunity to build a big media company
that’s technology-enabled and socially
created for a world of sharing.”
BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti

8. Monetizing and Payments
 Infrastructure promotes content
 “For the Internet to thrive, content providers
must be paid for their work.” (Gates, 1996)
 Technology for online payment and
collection has advanced to make this easy

9. References:
 Content is King, Bill Gates, 1996,
http://www.craigbailey.net/content-is-king-by-bill-
gates/#prettyPhoto
 Who Said Content is King, IceGiant, 2012
http://www.icegiant.co.uk/web-promotion-
services/articles/who-said-content-is-king.html
 Content IS King Again, Robeert Andrews, 2012
http://paidcontent.org/2012/11/16/content-is-king-
again-why-bill-gates-may-be-right-after-all/
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media:_Th
e_Extensions_of_Man
 Understanding Media, Marshall Mcluhan, NY, 1964,
http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/common-questions/