CPU No. 6: Productization, federated social media and the meaning of "good" content
Plus workshops on getting buy-in for content projects, and salons on style and AI
Content Pros Update is a free, monthly recap newsletter of all goings-on from The Content Technologist, including overviews of our most recent articles, events, and more.
Upcoming events
This month we launched our new virtual events series, and we want to give a huge thanks to those who attended our first salon on the state of social media. (In case you missed it, you can watch a playlist of highlights here.) We have several skill-building workshops and talk show-style salons coming up, so mark your calendars.
Workshop: How to scope and sell content projects
October 19, 2023 | 12:00-2:00 PM Eastern
Online only: $250 for members, $300 for non-members
This course is designed for independent creators, agency strategists, and brand-side leaders who are looking to sell more complex, comprehensive and lucrative content strategy projects in 2024.
Salon: Practical AI for content professionals
Date change! November 3, 2023 | 12:00-1:30 PM Eastern
Online only: $10 for members, $60 for non-members
In this salon, we'll explore where we're at with AI, what the technology can and can't do (despite what you may have heard), and how content people can make the robots work for them. Plus, you'll have the opportunity to network with other attendees and get ideas for tools and technology to manage social media.
Salon: Never go out of style — A live salon about content sophistication
December 1, 2023 | 12:00-1:30 PM Eastern
Online only: $10
In the age of automation and replication, style sets your content apart and makes it more human. But what is style, exactly? Get ideas for how to cultivate and advocate for content style in your organization; identify tools and tips for keeping style on-brand; and help us define the different dimensions of digital style.
Workshop: Annual content performance reporting — How to plan change with content data
December 7, 2023 | 12:00-2:00 PM Eastern
More info coming soon!
Got something you want to advertise in this newsletter? Curious about sponsoring an upcoming event? To be one of The Content Technologist’s inaugural sponsors, reply to this email or fill out this form, and we’ll be in touch.
Recent essays
Here's a rundown of the essays we published this month:
Productization: The path to more profitable freelance work
by Tina Morgan
Agencies are starting to convert their services into products. Here's why — and how — freelancers can follow their lead.
A few years ago, when I was still working in business development, a mid-size agency hired me to develop and run their product suite.
At the time, my relationship to development work was strained. I was tired of the pressure to create scopes that were unrealistic and underpriced. Tired of the understandable resentment from staff who had to execute those plans. Tired of consternation from leaders when the projects weren’t profitable. And I was especially tired of how this cycle repeated without any tangible benefits.
But a productization model was an appealing prospect. It presented an opportunity to define clear ways of working, create a standard for profitability, and provide strong data to balance the emotional decision-making that happened during the proposal process.
Consistency of vision and "good" content
by Deborah Carver
A reflection on the meaning of good content, as defined by Google — for better or worse.
Unlike social platforms that flip-flop between promoting branded content, clickbait news, user-generated posts, viral videos reduced to reels, and stories upon stories upon stories in their pursuit of “user engagement,” Google’s search engine has been remarkably consistent in its content ranking system.
That system and the ideas behind it were communicated far less transparently when I started working in search a decade ago, but they’ve always been there: Create content that sounds expert, structure a website well, connect related topics together, and make the website technically easy to use. When you optimize a website with Google's system in mind, you’ll create what most would consider a Good Website. No other big tech company has put forth a vision for good content that’s as comprehensive and consistent as Google. (The monopoly dollars, of course, make the consistency of vision possible.)
Everything lives in the rectangle: Federated content & social media
by Sam Thielman
![How standards proliferate: (see: A/C chargers, character encodings, instant messaging, etc). Panel 1. Situation: There are 14 competing standards. Panel 2. "14?! Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases." "Yeah!" Panel 3. [Soon] Situation: There are 15 competing standards.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa4e5b1cc-0562-4714-85b7-bcb9f950a135_900x300.png "How standards proliferate: (see: A/C chargers, character encodings, instant messaging, etc). Panel 1. Situation: There are 14 competing standards. Panel 2. \"14?! Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases.\" \"Yeah!\" Panel 3. [Soon] Situation: There are 15 competing standards.")
From Mondrian to federated content, we're on the cusp of reimagining social media so that it communicates what mass social networks left behind.
For a long time, the social media game trended toward models that could be scaled to accommodate massive groups, designed not only to connect individuals but also to compete with television and newspapers. As a result, companies like Facebook have data centers all over the world where they host content for billions of users.
But everything on Facebook is hosted on Facebook's servers and communicates using Facebook's proprietary software; that's not federation. Instead, it's the problem that federated networks are trying to fix.
Most small websites — or small social networks — don't need mass, global scale. With federated social networks, smaller operators can ideally reach interested audiences globally without server farms or proprietary software. There are a few snags, however, and federation clearly isn't for everyone.
In case you missed it...
How content excels with creative organizational design by Vicky Gu
The power of brand voice at Bookshop.org by Lindsay Li
Robots.txt vs. AI robots: How to block your web-based IP from crawlers by Deborah Carver
The Content Technologist: Content Pros Update is compiled by Deborah Carver, founder and publisher of The Content Technologist, and Digital Production Assistant M.E. Gray.
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