Is Content King?

Anyone working with the internet as a publishing medium will probably be familiar with the expression 'content is king'. The term established itself as a sort of a truism with designers returning to minimalist designs (web 2.0 design ethos) and a restored faith in the power of the internet as a repository for information (Wikipedia). However to state that content is king is to view the internet primarily as a content delivery system. There are some who challenge this perception and suggest that it is connectivity rather than content which has always been the primary driving force of the internet with E-mail as the true 'killer-app'. The success of services like text messaging and social networking sites such as Facebook baffled industry experts. Why was it that people would swarm in their masses to inferior content delivery services. The answer 'connectivity'. Traditionally users of telecommunications systems in particular the web have pushed for advances not in content but in services. So what does this mean for web developers. There are practical issues involved in this debate one of which is search engine optimization. The search engine google assesses a pages value largely through the quantity and quality of links to and from the page. Although the search algorithm does consider content and keywords it became obvious early one that this was not an effective way for judging the value of a web page (see link).

http://www.google.com/technology/

Web Developers must build connectivity into their sites if they are to make successful and useful web sites/applications. In truth content and connectivity operate interdependently and can be seen as two sides of the same coin. Content is still a primary concern for web developers but it is how we connect that content that makes it truely useful.

View the links below to see the two sides of the argument:

content is king
content is not king

Comments on this post or any other posts are welcomed. What do you think? Is content king?