JP Rangaswami, musing about social objects and why social objects are created by our stories, lives and shared experiences, not the content.

If you’ve ready anything I’ve written about the photography business, or marketing through experiences, or the value of context, you’ll understand why JP Rangaswami’s thoughts resonate so deeply with me.

JP, Thinking about social objects and limbo dancing:

You know what makes an object “social”? We do. Without us there is no “social”, even if we use objects to extend and enhance that socialness.

Photographs are social objects, which is why it would come as no surprise if Facebook now had more photographs than Flickr. Films are social objects. Songs are social objects. Books. Sporting events. TV programs. Concerts. They’re all social objects.

When we see lists like that, we can start believing that all social objects are “content”, which gets the “rightsholders” of content salivating up the wazoo. Perish the thought.

Content is not what makes an object social. We do.

Again, we do. Back to JP,

There was a time when “content” was created by a tiny minority of people, largely because the tools for making that content were elitist in nature. Scarce, expensive, needing specialist skills. To make matters worse, the techniques for distributing and sharing that “content” were also elitist in nature. So people who “owned” that “content” felt like kings.

Now things have changed. There’s been some limbo-dancing. The barriers to entry for creating, publishing and distributing “content” are getting lower by the minute. Which means that the content kings are all dressed up with nowhere to go. And so the only option they think they have is to try and recreate the barriers they used to enjoy, in paradigms where they are technically and economically difficult to recreate.

This is why incumbents make unbased arguments like crowdsourcing is “ripping off artists”.

Back to JP,

People who used to “own” “content” still have roles to play. While digital content will continue to trend towards free, there are many ways to make money because of that content rather than with that content, the “because effect”. Time-based premia. Analog sales. Authenticity. Merchandising. All the “better than free” ideas that Kevin Kelly tells us about.

As the cost of producing content drops, as the cost of distributing content drops, as the process of creating the content gets more and more democratised, something new happens. We start having too much content. Which means the role of curators increases in importance. Curation is about access, about trust, about relationships, about expertise, about context. So the content rightsholders of old have an opportunity to excel, since they have the inside track to providing these. We used to go to them for content they generated. Now we can go to them for content we generate. That is, if they stop their paywall tomfoolery. We pay for service, not for content.

Curation is a valuable service. The question: how will curators (individuals and companies) combine algorithms and people to curate content? How will we create layers of curation, creating different curatorial efforts for speed, efficiency, delivery methods, personalization, etc., all different and valuable ways to add contextual value to content.

Creating value through curating content and adding context isn’t new. But when the equations that have defined how we create and consume content and context change, we’re forced to create new systems, and the transition creates a lot of debate between the old and the new, between technology and business, between “laws on the books” and economic realities, between culture and tradition.

These are the debates that journalists, photographers, artists, writers et. al. all face. Choose your side of the debate wisely.

(Read JP’s full post for more thoughts, background and links to related posts by him, Hugh, and others. It’s worth it, as always.)