Seyi Taylor: The 3 pillars of great content

by Seyi Taylor

media content

I’ve been obsessed with the content business since I was a kid. Or at least I think it’s been that long but recently, I haven’t thought about much else.

If you think about it, content is Nigeria’s biggest export after oil. Literature, Nollywood and “Afro-beats” are all Nigerian creations that have international appeal. The best part is we consume our own stuff. We read Achebe and now we Chimamanda. We danced to Olisadebe and now we dance to P-Square. We feared Herbert Ogunde and now worship Genevieve Nnaji.

There’s definitely a move to create a “new school” of African content. Iroko TV distributes Nollywood. Spinlet distributes music and Kachifo re-kindled our belief in African literature.

So I’m starting a series of blog posts titled “This Content Of A Thing Sef”. I’ll be sharing my thoughts on how we’re creating and distributing everything from video, audio to text and why we are only scratching the surface of Africa’s huge content explosion.  The idea is to take a look at how technological and economic forces are affecting the content creation and distribution landscape in Africa.

The first post is about what I believe are The Three Pillars of Great Content. It’s a basic post and I don’t think there’ll be much of an argument about the points I raise in it. However, it’ll lead into a more interesting topic – “Game of Thrones: DSTV vs Iroko”.  After that I’ll tackle music distribution with a post titled “Get Rich or Die Streaming”. The last post will be called “Zombie, Oh Zombie” and it’s about this darned print business that just refuses to die.

God willing, I’ll be alive and able to complete these posts and we can have a long discussion about it. Please feel free to say your piece in the comments and if you’re going to be talking about this on Twitter, please use the hashtag #TCOATS.

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This Content Of A Thing is a series on… well… the content business. The Three Pillars of Great Content is episode 1 or 2 depending on whether you consider the first article an episode or an intro.

I think that the first pillar of great content is that it’s delivered in a non-linear manner. That basically means that it’s delivered on-demand; whenever I want it. It’s basically a shift from “catching XXX show at 8.00 pm” to getting the content whenever I want and any number of times I want after it has premiered.

This isn’t that much of a mind-shift as people may assume. Think about video clubs or all the people selling pirated DVDs. They make content accessible on-demand. No, you didn’t “catch” 24 on Fox when it premiered, but you can watch every episode at your convenience and as many times as you like on DVD or from someone’s hard drive.

Perhaps one of Nollywood’s greatest strengths was that it has been distributed primarily as an on-demand platform (via DVDs). Of course, today IrokoTV and its gazillion clones have taken the medium to its logical conclusion – on-demand delivery on the internet.

Another thing I think is important for content is mobility and portability. Mobility & portability are not the same thing. Mobility is really a function of devices and that’s not really a content distribution issue. Portability is more important – it simply means access that I can access wherever I am.

Portability is an accepted concept with music. While the Walkman provided mobility, tapes provided some measure of portability, allowing the owners of the tapes access their content anywhere there was a terminal (tape player). Today, portability is executed more elegantly with user accounts. My Deezer account is linked to my Facebook account. Once I get to any terminal (PC/mobile) that is compatible with Deezer (has the Deezer app or can access the Deezer website), logging in with my account should allow me access my music, playlists etc.

I suspect that in the near future, we’d be able to carry our Spotify/Deezer playlists into planes, replacing that horrid entertainment system with our own selections.

Of course, all this is quite pointless if the content is pure unadulterated crap. Or even mediocre crap. Music & video creation tools have become cheaper, allowing a plethora of content to be released on the world. However, most of it is distressingly bad, amateurish stuff that can’t possibly yield a cent of profit for the owners or distributors. The truth is that we all jones for quality content. It is the reason some movies get viewed more often. It is part of the reason that Game of Thrones is the most pirated show of all time. So yes, the third ‘pillar’ is that content has to be good.

Why is this important? Well, if you’re going to be the preferred video or audio provider of the future, you’ve got to check all these boxes. And that’s why the next post is about DSTV, Iroko TV, HBO and Netflix.

Reproduced with permission from TechCabal

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