In my previous entry, I outlined the significant challenges faced by traditional media companies. The emergency of a low-cost, global distribution mechanism - the internet - has created legions of small, focused players. Moreover it has created demand for ever more rapid and specific information. The solution I propose is to enable traditional publishers to bring their quality and breadth of content to bear by implementing Agile Content Networks.

Let's start with the basics. An Agile Content Network (ACN) has the following components:

• A logical index of all content available to the network (ideally all titles/channels)

• A content management system (CMS) integrated with the index, and capable of rapidly creating new channels by selecting a template

• Back-end capabilities (such as ad serving, authentication, personalization, recommendations, threaded discussions) that are functionally integrated into the channel by the CMS templates

Figure 1: Silo'd Content Creation and Delivery

It may be tempting to start building an ACN from the bottom-up, but there's no need. It's typically easy to implement an ACN gradually, by migrating. The first step can be as simple as bringing two sets of content together - logically, not necessarily physically - by indexing the two sets. Then take your favorite CMS (if you have more than one) and integrate it with the index such that you can create a channel simply by selecting a template, then writing a query to identify the content that should appear in the "live" template. Finally pick your favorite back-end features and wire them into the templates so their functionality becomes part of the channel.

One-two-three: you are agile! You can create a new channel - let's say a website all about "Brangelina" - as follows:

• Pick an appropriate channel template — let's say an "entertainment microsite" — that includes advertising, email alerts, and social networking features such as rating, tagging and sharing

• Populate the template by writing a query, e.g.

  "Brad Pitt" OR "Angelina Jolie" OR brangelina

  
  

• Hit the "publish" button and watch the site come to life!

Microsites are terrific for celebrities, current events, etc. Brangelina may be controversy free as you read this, but, the odds are some celebrity, somewhere, is one minute away from becoming a major news story. Imagine being able to build sites like this as the events happen. That's one goal of the Agile Content Network.

Here's another scenario: let's create a new "feed" we can sell to other publishers, using only our existing content! Imagine that we have a single index of content from two major publications - one covering travel and one covering epicurean lifestyles. We can create an "Aspen Experience" feed as follows:

• Pick a channel template that creates an authenticated feed - e.g. RSS with HTTP authentication

• Populate the template by writing a query:

  travel.region:aspen OR location:aspen OR (aspen AND (colorado OR CO)) OR (aspen AND skiing)

  
  

• Hit the "publish" button ... and the feed is live.

For sure, this is not the end of the channel creation process. You will want to do editorial review; you will want to refine the query; you will probably want to create unique graphic assets and add them to the template. Etc. But these are things that any publisher already does, and does well, and they are not major drivers of cost in the way that creation of the channel is.

Figure 2: Agile Content Network

Any journey of 10,000 miles (or more) begins with a single step. The key is that your first step can be small - something like the above. You can probably simplify the process by taking an existing content delivery system - perhaps your organization has a favorite one? - and gradually migrating other sources and back-ends to it.

What you may well need to add to your existing stack is a unified information access (UIA) solution that will allow you to query the (typically unstructured) content and related structured information such as subscription or permission data, rights information, popularity metrics, etc. The search engine built into the average CMS is intended to deal with the internal silo of data - the CMS' own - and not external data that needs to be provisioned into a site.

In any event, the key is to recognize the need to implement an Agile Content Network, and get started! Dylan Tweney, Senior Editor at Wired in the same Folio article, wrote:

"In 2008, an amazing 335 new magazines launched, despite looming economic storm clouds. In 2009, we'll see even more magazine startups, as entrepreneurs with funding (or un-maxed-out credit cards) seize the twin opportunities of cheap journalistic labor and lower competitive barriers to start up publications of their own."

The competition is not going away; it is going to get worse. Publishers that implement ACNs will adapt and survive... and survival is indeed the question.

Agile Content Networks: Part One

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