60 seconds of Information Overload

MyBlog - MyBlog

Hi, it’s me, I haven’t updated my blog for awhile - haven’t had much to say.

I suppose it’s because a lot of the work I’ve been doing is about cutting out the noise and clutter - you know, taking long, wordy pieces of writing and ruthlessly cutting it down until the message is clear.

I wonder if that’s the main difference between quality writing and rambling blogs or quality video versus the large amount of crap in the 25+ hours of content uploaded to Youtube ever minute?

In today’s digital age creating content is easy BUT creating good content is harder than ever.  Below is a snapshot of the amount of content created in 60 seconds - it's bamboozling and makes you wonder how you can create cut through?

The analogy I often use is the best designs are those that appear simple - the iphone comes to mind; a duck gliding across the water - below the surface there’s a whole lot going on.  

Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

Did You Know That - In 60 SECONDS

• Search engine Google serves more that 694,445 queries
• 6,600+ pictures are uploaded on Flickr
• 600 videos are uploaded on YouTube videos, amounting to 25+ hours of content
• 695,000 status updates, 79,364 wall posts and 510,040 comments are published on Social Networking site Facebook
• 70 New domains are registered
• 168,000,000+ emails are sent
• 320 new accounts and 98,000 tweets are generated on Social Networking site Twitter
• iPhone applications are downloaded more than13,000 times
• 20,000 new posts are published on Micro-blogging platform tumbler
• Popular web browser FireFox is downloaded more than 1700 times
• Popular blogging platform Wordpress is downloaded more than 50 times
• WordPress Plugins aredownloaded more than 125 times
• 100 accounts are created on professional networking site LinkedIn
• 40 new Questions are asked on YahooAnswers.com
• 100+ questions are asked on Answers.com
• 1 new article is published on Associated Content, the world’s largest source of community-created content
• 1 new definition is added on UrbanDictionary.com
• 1,200+ new ads are created on Craigslist
• 370,000+ minutes of voice calls done by Skype users
• 13,000+ hours of music streaming is done by personalized Internet radio provider Pandora
• 1,600+ reads are made on Scribd, the largest social reading publishing company

Creating Compelling Content

Here’s five tips for creating content that hopefully engages and shares

1. What's your objective?  Is it just to express your personal opinion OR does it have some other objective?
2. Who is your audience and what are their needs? You can't be all things to everyone so visualise the types of readers you want and understand what they want.
3. In terms of content there are six key questions to work with - Who, What, When, Where, How Much and Why?  What answers are important for your reader.
4. Tone: Is easier to be yourself - be real, natural and conversational - we’re all becoming highly tuned at filtering irrelevant BS.  As a reader I want to get to know you - your opinions.     
5. Is the content likely to be shared?  Does it have a call to action?  Does it entertain?  Does it have a logical flow so that it is easy to read?  Write - proofread (something I'm guilty of often neglecting) - rewrite - cut - post.