Where do users get their content from:

On one side users get  get their content from professional sources, who create and sell content. I was thinking the other day that most big broadcasters have the same setup, yet ratings vary tremendously: it comes down to the nature of content that is pushed and how aggressively it has been promoted.

On the other side, users are getting their content from their social networks as everyone in it broadcasts their thoughts, cravings and experiences. Stickiness here is a mix of surprise and familiarity. Ratings become reach: how far a piece of content is able to permeate the social networking fabric.
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Content, interface, machine. A service ecosystem, needs to understand that content will ultimately be the uptake driver. The beauty and usability of the device is important, its desirability factor, but in the end it’s content, and our insatiable appetite for it, that makes the difference. If your ecosystem does not have content it will not gather momentum. Content is the blood of a media system. The various devices exist to empower us in order to better manipulate and use content. Like little vampires we are. Media is no longer confused with message. Messages must cross many different media. Blood must flow.

Recapping functionality, pervasive tags… touch screens, mobile devices,  they all serve to allow us to better use and consume content. No matter if it comes from professional or immediate social networks. That is the function of a service design layer. When we use content, we transport it across different devices and consume it in different ways. Blood flows. The content we consume helps shape our identity, which we in turn broadcast, through the same devices and interfaces that professional content uses.

Tapping onto content is not an issue any longer. We inhabit a world where all content is available in several standard formats at all time. What differentiates an ecosystem from the next is its ability to move content around seamlessly, or not. [The cloud comes into play.]

In roman times, long avenues leading to squares was an effective way to control crowds. You could easily corral a crowd in a square and sieve it slowly through narrow avenues leading off it. Renaissance, french illuminism learned from it. Those who own ecosystems manipulate the way blood flows. I bought an ipad and felt there was only one avenue leading in and out of the square. I wanted a usb port to upload my movies. I wanted blood to flow, but it did not, it had to be filtered by iTunes. I understand the market/control logic behind it but I don’t accept it. Google don’t have an iPad, but are working on an ecosystem, a city that makes more sense to me.

If you were to look at current service ecosystems companies are building, and used the city as the image for each, what city is apple building? Google, HP, Intel? What cities are being built for our content, for our minds?

Cities with rivers, ancient chinese cities where crowds had a hard time gathering, roman cities with long avenues and squares, american grid cities made for cars…? These are cities for our minds, blood must flow.