Sponsored Content: Reinventing the Wheel

November 11, 2013

I want to ask you, gentle reader, “Do you recall the messages that whipped Rome’s citizens into a fury when the death of Germanicus became known?” If you did, you are aware of the value of sponsored content. If you did not, you will find something incredibly new, totally exciting, and probably revolutionary when you read “Marrying Companies and Content.” If the link is dead, you will have to find a content repository like the public library to read the article in the November 11, 2013, New York Times.

The main point of the write up is that since 1947 companies have been sponsoring content. Imagine that! 1947. The article explains that sponsored content is a darned good way to market. I liked this statement in the write up:

“This is not a fad,” he [PR maven at Weber Shandwick] said, pointing out that both corporate money (advertising) and venture money (backing) were pouring into brand publishing. “These guys stand out because they bring a depth of understanding to the economic proposition and know that for it to work, it has to be done right.”

For a more informative view of manipulated information, I suggest a spin through Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda is a useful first step.

To see the consequences of sponsored content, may I suggest:

  1. Running a query and identifying which hits are accurate, which are disinformation, misinformation, or reformation
  2. Standing in front of Cuba Libre in Washington, DC, and running a Google query for restaurants on your iPhone
  3. Considering the “value” of outputs from Jike.com, the Chinese centric search system
  4. Listening to either Harry Shearer or No Agenda and comparing the information with that in a mass media outlet.

By the way, do today’s college graduates have the tools to identify and remediate malformed information in search results? Is this discussion of Germanicus accurate? Can your colleagues handle ancient history or more timely outputs from a Big Data system?

Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2013

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