Aggregates and marketing

So far in this blog I've been speaking of new media quite generally. Although I've used the web as the main example, most of the points hold equally well for various other new media.

To explore marketing, however, it is worth focusing explicitly on the web. The key feature here (in addition to those of stable addresses and linking, which I mentioned at the beginning) is plurality: content (whether linear or aggregates) is published by a multitude of authors, and to mention a piece of content I don't need its owner's consent (or even her knowledge). And conversely, as a content owner I have no control over how or where my content will be linked to.

This means that aggregates are no longer gatekeepers, at least in the traditional sense. Short of enforcing conditional access, omitting content from aggregates is no longer a way to limit its availability: once content is mentioned in a single aggregate, there is no guarantee that the link won't be copied somewhere else (and content not included in an initial aggregate is unlinked, and hence unpublished). This means loss of control over promotion and exclusivity, and hence of the ways in which content will be received by consumers.

Aggregates remain an essential part of  publishing; it just that dealing with them is a much more difficult business than it used to be. Aggregates may be uncontrollable, but they remain key to audiences’ view of content. What publishers need is subtle ways to influence independent aggregates’ appraisals of their content. A strategy for this is to control the aggregates that mention content for the first time; but once enough independent aggregators have linked to it the process is out of control. If buzz then turns negative it may be difficult or impossible to turn around.

Another way of saying this is that physical and marketing distribution are now uncoupled. It is as if supermarket shelf-space (the marketing side of distribution) is now disconnected from the shipping of goods (the logistical side of distribution). Physical distribution is now a commodity, a merely technical matter. Market distribution is an altogether different business --it has to do with marketing and not with logistics-- and the two bear no relationship.