Definition of "content"

[Brenda Kienan]

Hi all. I'm looking for a concise definition of "content." My standard answer is "whatever the [website or other property] contains, but for discussions with engineers, this, of course, is not adequate.

So -- especially if you are a content engineer -- what is your definition of "content," and where do you draw the boundary between "content" and "not content"?

Many thanks,

Brenda Kienan

 

[Riche Zamor]

Hi Brenda - 

I like to define content simply as "codified information that is transferred from one entity (i.e. a person or application) to another, via some digital medium, in order to achieve a goal." I use "codified information" rather than "text" or "image" because it is all encompassing of any format, but does imply some level of information/knowledge transfer. Stating that it is for the purpose of achieving a goal may be a step too far - sadly not all content is created with a goal in mind. 

Here is a blog post I wrote about this topic recently: 

http://richezamor.com/2015/03/03/what-is-digital-content

Regards,

Riche

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Content Strategy" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to contentstrate...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Kevin Nichols]

In my book: Enterprise Content Strategy: A Project Guide, I offer the following definition, which I have used for past two years.  Here is an excerpt...

What does content mean?
In 2013, Rebecca Schneider1 and I came up with this definition: Content: any information that someone records.

Period. Within this definition, many things qualify as content:

• A YouTube video featuring mountain goats scaling a vertical mountain cliff (yes, those goats can do that)
• One of the few existing audio recordings of Virginia Woolf discussing the concept of words
• Hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt showcasing Queen Nefertiti
• Cave paintings of reindeer from the Neolithic era in Lascaux (which scholars recently concluded to be the works of women, not men, calling into question that whole hunters-as-male thing)
• Omar Khayyam’s Rubáiyát written in the 11th century
• Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s first recorded sound (nearly ten seconds of a woman singing “Au Clair de la Lune”)
• Fritz Lang’s film, Metropolis
• A book review in the New York Times
• Any type of interactive experience, such as the United Nations website
• The latest reality TV show, such as Dance Moms
  

Content today includes text, images, video, audio, and digital assets such as PDFs, multimedia, rich media, social media, and metadata.

Regardless of its varied manifestations, content has certain characteristics:
■ Content captures an instance of information read, seen, or heard at least once.
■ Content has a creator and a consumer. (The creator may be the only consumer.)
■ A consumer’s perceptions create and derive meaning and relevance from content, which may or may not adhere to the creator’s intent.

Content communicates information and manifests an experience or relationship with a content consumer. The best way to define digital content is as follows:
Information created by someone and stored in a digital format with the capability of being shared (or not) in the future.

This book focuses primarily on content in the context of a brand’s or organization’s identity. Because of this focus, any content produced by an enterprise is, by definition, a business or organizational asset. Created properly, content can have a definitive value associated with it, such as the monetary or brand value it brings to an organization. Good content can lead to better recognition of a brand, contribute to an organization’s mission, raise funds, or generate revenue. Next to products and services, content exists as the face of a brand or organization. Any brand or organization can harness significant power from good content.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 5:24 PM, Brenda Kienan <bki...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Mark Baker]

Content is the stuff the reader sees.

 

Content engineering is the process by which ideas get turned into stuff the user sees.

 

The boundary between content and not content is the boundary between what the reader sees and what they do not see.

 

If defining content simply as what the reader sees seems glib, it really isn’t, and it has important implications for process and communication. It means, among other things, that you can’t separate stuff belonging to developers from stuff belonging to writers because both affect what the reader sees. It also suggests that the stuff that content management systems manage is not really content, but more like proto-content – data capable of becoming content once rendered on a site.

 

Or you can choose to use the word “content” to refer to both the raw material and the finished experience, but then you should make the distinction clear in all contexts where there might be confusion. You could do this by talking about “finished content” and “raw content”. Finished content is essentially the product of code acting on raw content (thus, “content engineering”).

 

Mark

--

[Rick Yagodich]

Oh, fun.

Three answers so far, and while they all cover aspects of what content is and what it is not, they all have shortcomings. Two define content in terms of information, without clearly defining information.

The basic problem is that "content" itself is an aggregation of meanings.

Content is the set of data used to deliver a particular message. (Riche's term "codified" is good, because it encompasses all forms).

Within the content bucket, there are two distinct variants: the content pool, being the stuff available, and delivered content, being what is served up in a particular instance. (Kevin's definition describes the content pool. Mark's focuses on the delivered content.) Without that distinction, it is inherently going to be a messy question.

Of course, knowing what is and what is not content is superfluous without also understanding what is information, and how to get the two to overlap optimally.

For a fuller explanation, see: http://excolo.com/information-v-content/

 - R

[David Charron]

I think a small nuance has to be made here regarding the definition of content. It’s what the user sees (reads or views), yes, but also all he hears and all the tags and data related to this content. To craft the visible, content strategists must shape and set order to the chaos of the shadows.

DAVID CHARRON

concepteur-rédacteur-photographieur
514 923-5338
behance.net/charron
ca.linkedin.com/in/dcharron
twitter.com/David_Charron

[Rahel Bailie | IDI]

Check the definition of content on thelanguageofcontentstrategy.com - this term and 51 others are defined there.

Sent from my iPad - forgive my unruly autocorrect 

--

[Mark Baker]

I was meaning "sees" to include "hears". Wouldn't the tags count as containers rather than content?

But in the end what every good writer understands is that all language is local. There are not enough words to go round all the concepts we need to express.  There are a dozen variations on the concept and a dozen shades of meaning for every term. (I use dozen here in the sense of "whole whack", not the sesnse of "12".)

The greatest illusion in content strategy is that we can assign one unambiguous and universal meaning to every (or any) term. Sentences, paragraphs, and whole essays, sometimes, are the minimum unit of unambiguous meaning.

The best we can ever do is define our terms in  the context of the particular ad hoc conversation we are having with a particulat audience at a particular time.

Mark

Sent from Type Mail

[David Charron]

A brand may actually convey more than one message in a single content cycle and target more than one personae. As for the Information vs content, I’m not sur I get the relevance of the excolo article. Information is contextualized data and content, the larger strategic denominator. It encompasses the data and info and saying it aims at conveying a single message is, in most cases, wrong. Why complicate things and reinvent the wheel every six months?

Just saw Rahel’s post. Cheers!

d.

[Kevin Nichols]

I think information is broader than 'data,' and I use that broad definition intentionally. Within my definition, all types of information--and not just digital--fit into the category of content. I go on, in my book, to talk about content experience, which is the delivery-side of it. But content in and of itself is, in my opinion, any information recorded. It can have the intent to communicate a particular message, but that message is not always clear (think abstract visuals where the consumer has to derive the meaning in terms of what they feel is important). I don't see a difference between content and information because in its essence, content is information (which contains the meaning and message behind it). Also, I agree David, it is MUCH broader than just digital content.

[David Charron]

I think what you’re saying Mark was still true 24 months ago, when different disciplines were still tugging at the terms, ownership and purposes. But It’s now possible to some it all up in a couple words. A couple words that pack a lot of punch like the Big Bang and need lengthy explanations afterwards. It’s the biggest team sport around for sure.

Cheers!

d.

[Hilary]

For me, content is actually everything an organization has or does. It all manifests itself as content to the world, regardless of the medium.

Hilary Marsh  |  312-806-7854  | hil...@hilarymarsh.com

Content strategy for associations, nonprofits, corporations:
websites, blogs, social media, e-newsletters
http://www.hilarymarsh.com 
also hilarymarsh on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Slideshare, etc.

[Cruce Saunders]

Enjoying the discussion of this seminal concept.

To provide the answer to an engineer, the easiest shortcut is:   

Content is data.  Every kind of data.  Structured, unstructured, binary, serialized, localized or distributed.  If it's data, it's content.  If it's content, it's data. Content also may include data about the data (metadata, schema, taxonomy, or markup).  Enriched content is intelligent, and far easier to flow into multiple channels and variations of reuse.

Engineers inherently understand data and how to create, read, update, delete, ingest, parse, wrap, publish, relate, syndicate, analyze and mash it.  

Of course, calling content data ignores its poetry and emotional impact, the human dimension that gives content power.  

So there's a digital binary aspect, and an analog, multidimensional human aspect to content.

Ultimately, content strategy and content engineering are fascinating, complementary arts that make our world a more intelligent, humane place to live. 

Great question!

Cruce

 

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Content Strategy" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to contentstrate...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Cruce Saunders

c...@simplea.com

512-646-2100 x 305

--

We are [A]

simplea.com

[M Haggerty-Villa]

Thanks to all for an interesting discussion.

Although it does nothing to define "content," lately I find myself using the term "content data" when communicating with my technical team. Their focus is primarily data, so this term helps remind us that the data that must pass through their services is in fact content. And, candidly, this term also helps the tech team understand why they have to collaborate with a content strategist.

When working with my user experience and copy teams, I just use the term "content."

I suppose this might be a bit schizophrenic. I like to think of it as adapting my message (dare I say content?) to my audience.

Michael Haggerty-Villa

[Jared Spool]

Content is anything the user needs right now.

It could be an article or a video. But it could also be an account balance or a computer-generated itinerary. It might be stored in a database, it might be generated by an algorithm, or it might be hard-coded into the software. If the user needs it, it's content.

Another way of looking at it: Content is anything that, if removed, renders the value of the design useless. Content is why your engineers have jobs.

Jared

[Rick Yagodich]

But Jared, all the other stuff that you are choosing - for whatever reason - not to display to the user is also content. As is all the stuff that you are using to determine what you should display.

In effect, as someone said the other day (sorry, can't remember who), everything you have, everything you do, is content.

In order to have any meaningful discussion about content, we really need to identify the scope of that discussion. All the content for your business? (which includes the stuff you have nothing to do with, but that is created by others and relates to you). The content for a particular communication? Your content pool on a specific subject? Available, delivered, irrelevant, or perhaps suppressed content? (I could go on.)

Without a clarification of scope, a definition of content gets very close to a definition of data, which is anything that is in some way identifiable or recordable… which effectively translates to "the universe." The only effective difference being that data is anything recordable, content is anything recorded.

No wonder it is so hard for anyone to pin down what content is, when everyone wants an all-encompassing answer, yet so many focus only on the aspect that is relevant to them in that particular situation…

[Mark Baker]

Any specialized use of a term should inherit its basic meaning from the common use. Content is the stuff in a given container. Look at a different container and you should get a different definition of content. 

Look at the website and you will get a definition of content like Jared's or mine. Look at the system that manages and generates the sites, and you will get a different definition of content. 

It seems to me that the pure content strategy definition of content should focus on the site as container. The content strategy (what content do we need to meet business goals) should not depend on the mechanism by which the content is created and managed. 

Of course, content strategists often have to concern themselves with the mechanism in order to get the content the business needs on the site when it needs it to be there. But this is really a different problem, a problem we are increasingly naming content engineering. The content engineering definition of content should quite reasonably be different from the content strategy definition because it is concerned with a different set of containers, of which the site is only one. 

Actually, content engineering is likely to be concerned with a number of different containers -- enough perhaps to justify Rick's definition of content as a union of contents of all the containers that a content engineer might have to content with. 

The problem with a definition that is a union of the contents of may containers is that it ends up just being "stuff". Soup is the content of soup cans. Shoes are the content of shoe boxes. Soup and shoes are both content. Content is stuff. 

But a definition of "stuff" is not particularly useful. If you want a useful definition that does the hard work of language, which is making useful distinctions that guide correct action, then you have to distinguish the various containers whose contents you are describing at different parts of the process.

[Rick Yagodich]

Exactly, Mark.

Whenever trying to define content, we must specify the context. Otherwise, we can only fall back to the most generic definition. We cannot use the word "content" on its own; by its very nature, it is indistinct.

Who hasn't been in the situation where, when talking about a web site with the business people, the discussion of content covers only the web-presented content, so all the structural and business-logic content falls out of scope, because no one bothered to be precise about it?

And as you say, we want a word (or phrase) that sums up what we are talking about in a way everyone understands, without needing an appendix to clarify… "Content" alone cannot achieve that.

[Jared Spool]

On Mar 22, 2015, at 2:55 PM, Rick Yagodich <ri...@think-info.com> wrote:

But Jared, all the other stuff that you are choosing - for whatever reason - not to display to the user is also content.

Oh, that addition makes the definition nicely useless.

I disagree with this assertion. If you're not choosing to show it to a user, then it's not content. Maybe it's dis-content. Or in-content. Or, most likely, not useful content.

Content should start with a user-centered lens, not with an organization-centered lens. Once it's useful to the user, then we can talk about how the organization deals with it.

That's my opinion.

Jared

[Rick Yagodich]

So the bit of content that is useful to you, but useless to me is… what? Schizophrenic content?

And what about that bit of metadata that is used to decide to show it to you and not me? That will be manages as a part of the content, because it is directly pertinent to making the user-focused decision about what to display.

If you do not add a qualifier to the word "content," you are making assumptions about scope, and failing to communicate clearly.

[Jared Spool]

On Mar 22, 2015, at 6:24 PM, Rick Yagodich <ri...@think-info.com> wrote:

So the bit of content that is useful to you, but useless to me is… what? Schizophrenic content?

Again, you seem to want to define content through an organizational lens. 

Content through a user lens is defined as something useful. If I'm the user you're thinking about then, that stuff is content. For you, it's not.

[Rick Yagodich]

If we're going to that level of definition, and some useless content is served to me, but it's useful to you, you are then into the realm of defining information: that which informs. It is still content in both cases, even though to me it is junk.

However, you say it is not content in the case where it is served to neither of us - even though it is information you want, and "stuff" that is theoretically available to serve - simply based on whether it is served in that particular instance.

That is workable as a definition of "the content of this particular 'page'" but how is that definition actually useful? It is self-referential.

We are dealing with communication. Communication requires two parties. One to "say" something (however that is encoded, whatever form that content takes), and one to receive the message. If you focus only on the recipient, you don't have communication.

[Don R Day]

The meta-level discussion has its merits but I think it has strayed from the original poster's question which was a definition that engineers can work with.

Engineers work with resources, and a valid definition must at least strive to be true to that principle. There are two aspects of a resource that an engineer can work with: it is addressable (files on the early web, records in an SQL database) and, more importantly, the fields of that resource can be queried. In NoSQL databases, that query extends to all that is possible with XPath as the query language. This definition applies to images, videos, pdfs, code snippets, and anything else that can be addressed by a URI. To the extent that the resource can yield its inner secrets to a query, engineers have the opportunity to apply logic for adaptive, conditional, selective, responsive, and any other View behavior that has particular value for the requester.

This definition has nothing to do with organizational or user requirements other than that the Web processing architecture enables an engineer to devise a way to access a resource in part, in whole, or in aggregation in response to a request and to provide a suitable rendition for it (which may even be JSON for an API-served request). If that resource was able to respond to the parameters of the request, it was content from the engineer's viewpoint. And I'd beg to argue this applies to applications' and users' perceptions of the result, as well.

--

Don R. Day
Founding Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
LinkedIn: donrday   Twitter: @donrday
About.me: Don R. Day   Skype: don.r.day

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
--T.S. Eliot

---

This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

[Rick Yagodich]

I like that definition, Don. Anything that is addressable. It also allows a second definition for the developers, which is that of "served content": the result of a structured query of the addressable content pool.

[Jared Spool]

On Mar 22, 2015, at 6:44 PM, Rick Yagodich <ri...@think-info.com> wrote:

We are dealing with communication. Communication requires two parties. One to "say" something (however that is encoded, whatever form that content takes), and one to receive the message. If you focus only on the recipient, you don't have communication.

I guess I was working with a boolean AND for the two-party communication. If it's not useful to one party, then it's not content. Content is only communication that is useful to both, which is why you need to start with a user-centered lens.

[David Charron]

Although I agree it’s tough to formulate a fully encompassing definition of content in the context of content strategy, a definition can not be subjective. A dog is dog wether you’re an engineer or a writer. Cheers!

DAVID CHARRON

concepteur-rédacteur-photographieur
514 923-5338
behance.net/charron
ca.linkedin.com/in/dcharron
twitter.com/David_Charron

[Rick Yagodich]

But aren't there many cases where an organisation will feel a need to include content that is - allegedly - useful to the end user, but where said content is not useful to the organisation? Indeed, it's inclusion may be considered detrimental. But it is still part of the communication. It is still content...

-------- Original Message --------
From: Jared Spool
Sent: Sun, 22/03/2015 23:10
To: content...@googlegroups.com
CC:
Subject: Re: Definition of "content"

On Mar 22, 2015, at 6:44 PM, Rick Yagodich <ri...@think-info.com> wrote:

We are dealing with communication. Communication requires two parties. One to "say" something (however that is encoded, whatever form that content takes), and one to receive the message. If you focus only on the recipient, you don't have communication.

I guess I was working with a boolean AND for the two-party communication. If it's not useful to one party, then it's not content. Content is only communication that is useful to both, which is why you need to start with a user-centered lens.

--

[Rick Yagodich]

A dog is also an animal. And a lifeform. And a thing.
On an equivalent continuum, "content" sits much closer to the genetic thing end than the dog end.

-------- Original Message --------
From: David Charron
Sent: Sun, 22/03/2015 23:14
To: content...@googlegroups.com
CC:
Subject: Re: Definition of "content"

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Content Strategy" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to contentstrate...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[David Charron]

Dear God… Yes, the fully encompassing definition will only be and must be a simplified iteration of a way more complex reality. Many disciplines come together here. So again, a dog must first be a dog to all. Then we’ll talk about Great Danes and Poodles.

d.

[Mark Baker]

David: But that is the thing. Definitions are subjective. Or at least, they are ad hoc. Words have a mess of associations, which can only be narrowed down through careful juxtaposition with other words in sentences, paragraphs, and essays. There are far far more things in the world than we have words to assign to all of them. Thus we make use of a very small stock of words to form sentences and paragraphs that point to specific meanings. 

Any attempt to make a word signify one thing and one thing only is enormously difficult and usually requires the creation of a jargon that is impenetrable to all but the deeply initiated. Making web sites that work is a collaborative enterprise among many people, many of whom are not full time Web people. Even among those who are full time Web people, we have radically different background and radically different concerns. There is no common jargon (such as doctors have for medical conditions) and the enterprise of creating one is beyond our means. The word "content" is going to get used in subtly (and even radically) different ways by different people in the course of conversations about how to make the Web work for us. To suppose otherwise is an exercise in futility. 

This is one of the basics of communication that sadly seems to have been forgotten. If you want to express a precise and unambiguous meaning, you are going to have to use a lot of words, carefully arranged. You are never going to get the entire population to agree to let you take an entire word out of our limited stock to be used for your limited purpose (as this conversation demonstrates). 

And even if you did, you would find you had stymied yourself because you would find yourself wanting to use that word in a different sense before the day was out. 

Think of communicating in language like drawing a venn diagram. Each circle by itself is too big for your meaning. By drawing many circles, you narrow down the field sufficiently to isolate your meaning. There is usually no one word for the meaning so defined. The meaning is the intersection of the significance of multiple words. 

This is not an accident or a deficiency; it is just how human language works. Sentences are the smallest unit of meaning. There is a very limited stock of words, but a virtual infinity of sentences. New words are created rarely. New sentences and paragraph are created commonly. This is how language constructs a virtual infinity of meanings, and allows us to communicate brand new ideas that have never been thought before, using a common stock of a few thousand words. (If it did not work this way, it would be virtually impossible to say anything new.)

So to the OP: if you have to answer an engineer when they ask you what you mean by content, don't expect that you can refer them to a single universal and unambiguous definition that everyone agrees on. That is not how language works. There are not enough words to go round and ideas are formed of sentences, paragraphs, and essays, not words alone. The only answer you can really give is what you mean by content, right now, in the context of the present conversation. Because, guaranteed, you will mean something different by it when you utter it tomorrow. 

[David Charron]

Always. But you’re missing the point. We’re not playing « This not a pipe » here. We’re looking for a common denominator. 

I’ve been following this group for a long while. Still feels like disciplines butting heads. Thought we were past that. Disappointing. And very contreproductive.

d.

[Dane Troup]

It depends. Content is not the same for every project nor does it have the same meaning to each team member. If I was the engineer and was building a site that was managed through a CMS then the content would be that which is managed through the CMS. So they could build a series of templates that in this case would not be dependent on content. However they would need to know the "content strategy" or intent of the templates. As a UX professional I would want to know what the goals of the page are and where is the user in the flow of the experience. As a designer (graphic/UI) I would want to know the priority of content in the template to decide where the emphasis should be. 

I would look more into what the disconnect is and work through it. Come up with your own definitions of content types to create clarity.

Just my 2 cents 

Dane

On Thursday, March 19, 2015 5:24 PM, Brenda Kienan <bki...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all. I'm looking for a concise definition of "content." My standard answer is "whatever the [website or other property] contains, but for discussions with engineers, this, of course, is not adequate.

So -- especially if you are a content engineer -- what is your definition of "content," and where do you draw the boundary between "content" and "not content"?

Many thanks,

Brenda Kienan

 

[Jared Spool]

I never said anything about the need for the information to be useful to the organization.

[Hilary Marsh]

The very definition of content is “stuff.” It is stuff that organizations produce because they think audiences want it; it is stuff that audiences want that they hope the organization produces; and it is stuff that we all have a hand in guiding, conceiving, creating, managing, building, maintaining, expiring, surfacing, promoting, measuring, making findable, etc.

What is left out of this definition, and this discussion so far, is what all the stuff IS. That’s the trickiest part — to make decisions about the content based on what the stuff is actually about. In order to do that, the key first step is to get organizations to see that, as I said earlier in the conversation, everything they do manifests itself as content, and everything their audiences want from them also takes place via content.

Hilary Marsh

President and Chief Strategist, Content Company

312-806-7854  |  hil...@hilarymarsh.com

Content strategy for associations, nonprofits, intranets

http://www.hilarymarsh.com 
also hilarymarsh on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Slideshare, etc.

[David Charron]

Last contribution to this discussion…

Wether you grow, you transport, you sell or transform apples, an apple is an apple. It can be MacIntosh, Paulared, Cortland or Empire, it doesn’t matter. It’s still an apple. It can be whole, in a juice, a pie, purée, cidre, at its core, it’s still a freakin apple. Subsets comme later.

Until we agree on this basic principle, this conversation and the field will keep having a hard time becoming. The lack of standardization keeps prices up while maintaining efficiency and productivity low. As a result, only big corporations have the means to see through this mess to find competent resources and make the most of the full might of content strategy. Smaller organisations may see hints of potential, but they can’t afford the full package, and they don’t see which parts apply to them and where’s the ROI. So they remain, for the most part, an untapped market or a poorly served one at best.

I’m not in the States. A lot of what I read here doesn't have practical applications in Canada. Still to much confusion. Not enough specialists (who speak the same language). To expensive. Agreeing on definitions for key components would be a good start to broadening the field’s reach.

Just read Hilary’s post. Could almost see her stretching her arm and dropping the mic. Thank you Hilary.

Cheers!

[Matt Moore]

Hello,

Content is words, pictures and other stuff that users will consume
meaningfully. Everybody will argue about this bit (passim). But it's
not the more important bit.

The more important bit is what Content is NOT:
- It is not the system in which it sits. That's a Content Management System.
- It is not the processes by which it is created, modified,
distributed and archived. Those are Content Management Processes and
these may be part of an overall Content Lifecycle.
- It is not the people who create, modify, manage or consume it.
- It is not the structures and metadata by which it is managed. That
is an Information Architecture.
- There are special kinds of content that are used to produce more
content. These are Templates or Style Guides.

Content vs Data vs Information vs Knowledge - There we hit a grey
area. And then the questions arise "why is this distinction important
and do I need to spend a lot of time on it?"

What else is frequently confused with Content in content strategy /
content management discussions but is not actually Content?

Regards,

Matt

On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Brenda Kienan <bki...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all. I'm looking for a concise definition of "content." My standard
> answer is "whatever the [website or other property] contains, but for
> discussions with engineers, this, of course, is not adequate.
>
> So -- especially if you are a content engineer -- what is your definition of
> "content," and where do you draw the boundary between "content" and "not
> content"?
>
> Many thanks,
> Brenda Kienan
>
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Content Strategy" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to contentstrate...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.



--

Matt Moore
M. +61 (0) 423 784 504
ma...@innotecture.com.au
http://innotecture.com.au/

[Mark Baker]

"Agreeing on definitions for key components would be a good start to broadening the field’s reach."

And cold fusion would solve the world's energy problems and make it possible to address the causes of global warming. But being highly desirable does not make a thing any more possible. 

I would not keep harping on this if the issue were merely coming up with a universal definition of content. That is not going to happen. The arguments about the definition are not even about the word itself. They are arguments about which of the many different implications of the word are more important -- which means which are more important to each of us, which means that they are all, in fact, subjective. (This, by the way, is what virtually every argument about definitions is really about.)

But as content strategists we need to realize that we deal in natural language and that natural language does not work like computer code or tabular data. It does not work through the precise definition of individual terms ("apple" is a word incredibly rich in metaphor and association).

A strategy for communicating in natural language (or in other forms of natural communications, such as pictures) needs to be rooted first and foremost in a clear understanding of how language works and how it is understood. 

You can create a space in which a word like "apple" had a precise and unambiguous meaning, but you have to very deliberately create it by how you use language to set up the use of the word in the sense you intend to use it. 

The number one reason that communication fails is that it does not adequately and correctly establish context for the intended audience. And the reason for that is that, thanks to something called the curse of knowledge, adequately and correctly establishing context for a concept you already understand is incredibly difficult. We quickly lose the ability to remember what it was like to not understand something we now understand. This is why writing is difficult. It is why teaching is difficult. It is why content strategy is difficult. 

It would, of course, be much easier if we could establish single meanings for words that the whole world would agree on. (Agreeing among ourselves is of no use if we need to explain ourselves to other people.) But people stubbornly insist on using our very limited shared vocabulary to describe the things that matter most to them. 

Part of the curse of knowledge is that we forget that words mean subtly different things to other people. Thus we say things that mean one thing to us and another to them. Then we get frustrated and demand common definitions for all. And then, because different things are of interest and importance to each of us, we each argue for our meaning of the word becoming the default. 

The real curse of Babel is not that all the nations use different words for the same thing, but that they used the same words for different things.

This is not something we can fix. It is how language works. As content strategists, it is fundamental that we understand this. Believing that we can establish a single unambiguous universal definition of the word "content" is a sign that we don't.

[Rick Yagodich]

On 23/03/2015 02:50, Mark Baker wrote:

Part of the curse of knowledge is that we forget that words mean subtly different things to other people.

And all too often, not-so-subtly different things...

[Michael Andrews]

Brenda,

I'd be curious to know more about why your engineers are asking for a definition of content.  What difference does it make to them in practice?  I can't tell if they are simply trying to understand the different types of content they will be dealing with, or whether they plan some sweeping processes such as lifecycle management planning that might affect content (or not).  

They may be wondering if they need to record session history because it shapes the content presented, or need to know if content hosted by third parties is included.  I think such follow-up questions will help yield a more practical answer for your situation.

Michael Andrews

[David Charron]

An apple may need to be a field specific apple, but the field must agree on sharing the same name to refer to the same fruit. Then come varieties, which may also need field specific names and definitions.

A big challenge, I know. But how else will this recurring discussion ever come to a satisfying and practical conclusion for all?

A naming committee of practitioners from every content strategy disciplines should (virtually) sit down and lay the ground work to the necessary common lexicons and glossaries.

You probably gathered by now that I’m not a native English speaker. So good luck with that important mission! I’ll translate for you if you want. ;)

Cheers!

[Tony Chung]

Best answer:

On Sunday, March 22, 2015, Hilary Marsh <hil...@hilarymarsh.com> wrote:

The very definition of content is “stuff.” 

Specifically, pronounced "stu--uuuuf".

"Stu--uuuuf" implies that it doesn't need to be complete, but it could be. It may need to be managed, but doesn't have to be. It may be reused in any order in any time, or it may exist for a specific purpose in a specific time.

This leaves the responsibility of the definition to state the specific uses for a piece of "stu--uuuuf", based on your user's needs.

So you would precede or follow "content" (or "stu--uuuuf") with its expected usage, and define that as the term. Not the whole ball of wax.

A "reusable content component" vs a "content product" or a "final content artifact" would have different meanings.

Thanks Hilary!

-Tony

[Hilary Marsh]

Thanks, Tony!

[Joe Pairman]

Great discussion. I like Hilary's definition, and also Jared's (the latter because of the focus on the value in the content). However, for a watertight definition, I think it's hard to beat Joe Gollner's one of "potential information": gollner.ca/2009/08/the-truth-about-content.html

That fits with Hilary's definition in a way — content / stuff as raw material. And it also works well with Jared's idea, if you substitute "content" in his definition for "information". Information according to Gollner is:

... the meaningful organization of data, communicated in a specific context and with the purpose of informing others and thereby influencing their actions.

That's what we want our content to become, I think, even if when we're creating and storing it, that's only the potential state.

Cheers,

Joe

[SalesVPI]

For my B2B marketing, sales and executive clients I have a simple way of defining content that seems to help align the generally confused. 

The first word in this group of three relates to the audience, the aligned word the communicator. 

Information -- contentS

Packaged -- container

Experience -- purpose

A breakthrough for our work is using "the experience you want the content to create, and the purpose for which it is created." This word seems to capture these important elements and the broader "context" element that is essential for content that works. 

Here's the blog post that explains this thinking: http://www.avitage.com/what-is-content-required-for-content-creation/ 

Jim Burns, Avitage 

jbu...@avitage.com  

[Malcolm Davison]

Content is 'being satisfied with life'. So why did web folks hijack the term? But recognising that that’s happened and creating confusion here are a few other observations:

Remember content must include what the users contribute too. For example feedback to news articles. It’s not a one way street.

In the real world, we mustn’t take a pious attitude of what ought to be present, but recognise that much content that shouldn’t be present is distributed too: through poor publishing, lack of housekeeping or through a 'publish regardless' philosophy.

It’s not just what readers see, some are blind, so it can be what they hear as well. 

And add ‘experience' too - take virtual reality files. You can experience a fairground ride, a plane crash or experience the interior of a building using Oculus Rift and similar technologies. 

Perhaps 3D file imagery can be included too, and that’s also part of virtual reality. 

Why not throw in ‘smell' - as they can be conveyed digitally too. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_scent_technology.

Then there is ‘touch' experienced by remotely operating surgeons and used by Apple Watch http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/9/6127563/apple-watch-digital-touch Touch is not jsut real time but storable as files that can be distributed. And what about digital Braille? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_e-book

But one positive from the earlier dialogue in this thread is that content strategists are far from being content!

Malcolm Davison

www.writingfortheweb.co.uk 

[Jill]

If I'm not entering the fray too late: 

Content is the everything you do to communicate to your audience that is not direct, real-time talk.

For instance: a webinar in real time is not content. Record it and make it available no synchronously: voilà! Content.

The definition including 'useful to the person finding it' is not, I think, a helpful one. That would make all content 'good content.' But why do that? No matter how bad a movie is, we don't go so far as to say it doesn't meet the requirements to be considered a movie.

Sent from my iPhone

--

[Cliff Tyllick]

Malcolm, I appreciate your mentioning all of these alternatives for experiencing content. It's important for us to appreciate that there are many ways to convey and perceive information. But I do have a couple of quibbles:

>> It’s not just what readers see, some are blind, so it can be what they hear as well. 

>> And what about digital Braille? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_e-book

The content is still text, even when the person reading it is doing so with a screen reader or Braille interface. Conceivably, tactile or haptic interfaces could also be used to present text. In fact, they have been for 150 years or so: text could be transmitted as Morse code through a series of vibrations or pulses.

You make a good point that audio, vibration (think Sensurround), fragrances, and I guess even temperature changes could be used to convey messages and therefore are at least media for presenting content other than text.

But then we get back to the issue of whether the content is the message itself or the means used for conveying the message. (McLuhan, pipe down!)

>> But one positive from the earlier dialogue in this thread is that content strategists are far from being content!

And perhaps our restlessness drives us to make the Web and other media more useful and usable to all. :-)

Cliff Tyllick

[David Charron]

Although I agree it’s tough to formulate a fully encompassing definition of content in the context of content strategy, a definition can not be subjective. A dog is dog wether you’re an engineer or a writer. 

DAVID CHARRON

concepteur-rédacteur-photographieur
514 923-5338
behance.net/charron
ca.linkedin.com/in/dcharron
twitter.com/David_Charron

An apple is apple is an apple, wether to a child or to an engineer. Also, keep in mind that, to be effective and efficient, content strategy must encompass much more than Web related stuff.

Le 2015-03-22 à 18:51, Don R Day <don...@contelligencegroup.com> a écrit :

[Kevin Mahoney]

To me it’s all content. The method of delivery is what we call the medium.  Even from an etymological standpoint, content means something “contained” (or as someone more accurately equated to: “stuff”—as we don’t need to imply that it comes served on/in something because all “stuff” is served in/on/through something). Media would be the proverbial “box” or “platter" by which said stuff arrives—basically the delivery system.

To put the fundamental metaphor to the practical examples:

Words/concepts are the content, and ideally should be atomic; text is a medium. Braille is a medium. XML is a medium.  Audio is a medium. Images are a medium.  Web pages are multimedia (mixture of text medium, image medium, audio and whatever else).  Even language itself is a medium to translate/convey the electrochemical impulses from the author's brain to (approximately similar) electrochemical impulses.

For the sake of human beings, they are not two ambivalent components, because the content of an audio file would become nonsensical if conveyed in the form of an image; likewise, an image would be nonsensical to a blind person.  Therefore, I’ve always seen the effective organization and deployment of content as: using the right tool, for the right job, to deliver the content to the right audience in the least amount of time while still having the desired effect.  

This is all based on the presupposition that the ultimate goal is the ideal one of communication unhindered by abnormal technical constraints.  And it tends to always yield a combination of multiple media channels to achieve what is necessary. Since none of us are empaths or have telepathy, we have to rely on overcoming these obstacles: 1) accessibility, 2) culture, 3) education, 4) attention span, 5) personal beliefs (for persuasive writing).  This is all common sense stuff here, so I’m just iterating over the obvious… but let’s say that the goal is to convey a very simple idea (like: “reduce plastics dumped into the ocean”) to an average audience.  To handle the culture, education, attention span, and personal beliefs  it’s best to lead off with something that breaks through any initial barriers that plain text might not… something that conveys a lot of information at once would be either a photo or an infographic (as much as I loathe their ubiquity now)… that’s a visual medium that does not require a lot of technical understanding (education) or attention span on the part of the audience to get the idea. Accessibility can be addressed by providing a backup medium that strives to achieve the same degree of persuasiveness.  Education and personal beliefs can be further addressed by providing citations and an easy method for accessing more information that backs up the initial visual.

In the end, this is all about media and not the information itself.  Information itself is inherently meaningless without context, and the context is pretty much useless if not conveyed via the right medium.  And this goes for both one-way delivery systems (static or targeted content) as well as two-way delivery systems (where users actively query a system to get information back).  It’s still all about media, not the content, in this case.

[Noz Urbina]

I'm not inclined to dive into this topic (again) so I will just cast my vote to support Kevin Nichol's definition of "that which can be recorded". I find that in a world with so many definitions, that's one I find means something relatable, yet always still applies.

[Monica Bussolati]

+1 for Noz

Monica

On May 5, 2015, at 6:17 PM, Noz Urbina <b.noz....@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not inclined to dive into this topic (again) so I will just cast my vote to support Kevin Nichol's definition of "that which can be recorded". I find that in a world with so many definitions, that's one I find means something relatable, yet always still applies.

[Malcolm Davison]

I don’t think we have a single definition that will stand up to close scrutiny yet. Here are the problems with those suggested so far (I hope I haven’t overlooked any):

____________________________

‘Information created by someone and stored in a digital format with the capability of being shared (or not) in the future.’ [Kevin Nichols]
... It doesn’t have to be created by a human - take a webcam. Rather than shared - perhaps ‘accessed’ - as this implies another human being involved. eg financial houses use their computers to collate data from other websites, or Google ‘spiders’ our websites.

‘Content: any information that someone records.’ [Kevin Nichols]
... handwriting, drawings etc are not content until they are digitised.

‘Content is the stuff the reader sees.’ [Mark Baker]
... I saw a bus with an advert on the side go past - that’s not content.

‘Content is the everything you do to communicate to your audience that is not direct, real-time talk.’ [Jill]
... too much left out, no mention of digital, you don’t need to communicate, omit ‘you’ it can be non-human created content. This definition would also cover actors on a stage.

‘Content is potential information.’ [Joe Gollne]
... too vague, no mention of digital.

‘Anything that is addressable.’ [Don Day]
... my home is addressable.

‘Any text, image, video, decoration, or user-consumable elements that contribute to comprehension.’ [Scott Abel]
... too specific, comprehension not necessary, user imples human recipient, comprehension not required.

‘Content is the set of data used to deliver a particular message.’ [Rick Yagodich]
... but it doesn’t have to be a message and dosen’t have to be delivered.

‘... the meaningful organization of data, communicated in a specific context and with the purpose of informing others and thereby influencing their actions. [Joe Gollner]
... no concept of organising should be part of the definition, and it’s not necessarily people.

‘Content is anything the user needs right now.’ [Jared Spool]
... no mention of digital, and humans involved again, and data can be archival and not for immediate consumption.

‘Content is “stuff.” [Hilary Marsh] ‘
... fun but not precise enough, and no mention of digital. But a handy, lively explanation for training purposes.

’That which can be recorded’. [Kevin Nichols]
.. if it hasn’t been recorded then it’s not content, and no mention of digital.

“Content means something “contained”’. [Kevin Mahoney]
... no mention of digital. Peaches can be contained, so can lorries and planes.

"Codified information that is transferred from one entity (i.e. a person or application) to another, via some digital medium, in order to achieve a goal." [Riche Zamor]
... perhaps the closest we have got so far, but too long

‘Content is data’ [Cruce Saunders]
... this is pretty good too - but no mention of access.

____________________________

So now I have offended just about everyone in this discussion thread - but purely for the greater good of identifying the definition that will stand the test of time and criticism - you might be wondering what my definition is. Here it is:

‘Content is digital data that may be accessed from one computer by another.’
Then, for clarity, a list of file type examples might follow.

If ‘computer' seems too specific then ‘computerised device’ would be better, if a little pedantic.

Having lit the blue touch paper, I think I will now retreat to a safe distance.

Malcolm

[Rick Yagodich]

I was thinking the other day of countering Jill's argument, as I felt it put an illogical hole in the middle of the spectrum. But Malcolm, I have only one issue here… What's with the "digital"?

Inherently, there is nothing "digital" about content.

Jill's hole is that she excluded speech, but did not eliminate other forms of in-person communication (body language, anyone?).

Fundamentally, content is anything, whatever the storage or carrier format(s), that allow data (whether information or not) to be transferred from one environment to another, which may or may not involve a person's mind. (This inherently includes any form of storage as a container of content, provided there is a way of extracting said data - which is always the case, short of a black hole.)

So, getting back to the original bent of the question, how to describe content to the dev team… We cannot have a single definition short of "everything," without first placing restrictions on our intentions. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Who is our audience? What are the messages? Which directions are they supposed to be flowing? How do they interact with each other? (The elements we will be calling content, not the people.) Which media are relevant? We need to understand what we are trying to do, and especially the limitations we will place on our scope, before we can explain to anyone - including ourselves - what stuff we are putting in this particular box labelled "our content."

 - R

[Rahel Anne Bailie]

Hey Malcolmn, you forgot to offend me! ;)

"Content is contextualized data."

And it may be a teeny quibble, but recording doesn't necessarily mean digital. You can record something by writing with a chisel on stone, as we have records in caves ...

Rahel

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Content Strategy" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to contentstrate...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Rahel Anne Bailie, Content Strategy & Ecosystems / Content Management & Design
Intentional Design Inc. - Content strategies for business impact 
Mobile: +44 (0) 7869 643 685 / skype: rahelab
Co-producer: Content Strategy Workshops
Co-editor: The Language of Content Strategy
Co-author: Content Strategy: Connecting the dots between business, brand, and benefits

[Mark Baker]

The most basic thing that every communicator needs to understand is that in communication, context is everything. Unlike programming, human communication does not work by defining unique symbols that have only a single completely defined meaning. We have a small stock of words that are rich in connotations and we combine them into sentences, paragraphs, and essays to express precise meanings in specific contexts.

If this list, and its objections illustrates anything, it illustrates this.

When programmers create unique symbols to stand for a single  concept, they do so in the context of a single program. There are billions of such symbols in all the programs ever written. A human language with a unique symbol for every concept anyone wanted to express would have billions of words. We get by with a few thousand in our use vocabulary.

This attempt to define the word content for all of content steategy is doomed to failure, and betrays a troubling lack of understanding of how human communication actually works.

The attempt to uniquely define content amounts not simply to an attempt to turn English into a programming language, but an attempt to turn it into a single program. That's not how it works, and it cannot be made to work that way.

So, yes, you are going to have to define content, implicitly or explicitly, each time you use it in context, or at least each time you detect that your interlocutor does not understand it in the same way you mean it. That's the way language works, which means it is how content works. Understanding this is the sine qua non of content strategy.

Sent from Type Mail

[Rick Yagodich]

On 06/05/2015 12:31, Mark Baker wrote:
> We get by with a few thousand in our use vocabulary.

Generous, Mark. I thought much of the population were now operating in
the region of 300…

[Malcolm Davison]

> "Content is contextualized data.”

Sorry Rahel, I did didn’t I.

I agree with ‘content’, ‘is’ and ‘data’!

But since computers can search and create listed order from disorganised content on the fly I don’t think it has to be ‘contextualized’.

So there you go, I have offended you as well!

Malcolm :-D

[Rahel Anne Bailie]

Oh, then you'll have to go back and read http://intentionaldesign.ca/2009/06/26/a-practical-definition-of-content/ and tell me if you still stand by your statement on context.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Content Strategy" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to contentstrate...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Malcolm Davison]

I agree Mark. The problem is that if you want to create a distinct specialty called ’content strategy’ everyone needs to agree what ‘content' is.

But then everyone has their own interpretation of ‘content strategy’ - oops better not start that one off again.

I am wondering if there should be a 'web friendly’ definition of ‘content' for training purposes and another broader IT purist definition.

Malcolm

[Malcolm Davison]

Well you quote another one in your article:

'Content can be described as “everything” [Rachel Lovinger]
… again not digital

Well I don’t agree with your argument to be honest:

> There will also be data that gets attached to the content

Isn’t that more content or more data?

Let’s take your example of ’a dozen eggs’. It could be stored randomly in a database as one of tens of thousands of supermarket items.

The shop manager wants to list all the dairy items - and a dozen eggs will be found by the computer and added to the list. It’s only contextualised when the request for that specific information is received. The content itself is not stored contextualised. The eggs live randomly among the other produce.

It’s a similar story with adaptive web content delivery where the computer delivers only the content to the device (smartphone / tablet / whatever) appropriate for screen size on which it will be displayed.

M

[Rick Yagodich]

The flip side of that argument, Malcolm, is that one of the content strategist's primary deliverables is the definition - for a particular project - of what constitutes content.

It's sort of the same thing as a military strategist's job… determining for a particular campaign which assets to not deploy to theatre. Conscription is part of the larger scope of "military," but luckily, they leave that one off the table most of the time.

[Rick Yagodich]

On 06/05/2015 12:55, Malcolm Davison wrote:
> The shop manager wants to list all the dairy items - and a dozen eggs will be found by the computer and added to the list. It’s only contextualised when the request for that specific information is received. The content itself is not stored contextualised. The eggs live randomly among the other produce.

How will the computer know to add eggs to that list? It must have
contextualisation data of some sort - something that maps eggs into the
concept of dairy. Whether the contextualisation is "attached" to the
eggs directly, or a separate axis of content is fundamentally
irrelevant. Without context, you cannot sort, aggregate or manipulate.

[Malcolm Davison]

You might select your content by the system using word search, by using metadata or by referring to additional fields. But this extra data does not qualify it to be content rather than data. It’s simply additional content (or data).

Perhaps we need to define ‘contextualisation’ - I take that to mean that the data stored together in a coherent and meaningful way. Or do you mean 'the context of the data' is stored with the content? But how do you know what the context is - until the request is made?

So I would abandon the word contextualisation altogether - it’s a red herring.

M

[Mark Baker]

" The problem is that if you want to create a distinct specialty called ’content strategy’ everyone needs to agree what ‘content' is."

Ah! That is the falacy that is driving this hopeless quest.

Medicine

Engineering

Politics

Writing

These are all professions, yet I defy you to cite a precise and universally agreed definition of those words.

We know what these professions are because we have seen them work. The words do not define them, they merely name them. Everyone recognizes a table when they see one, but try to come up with a precise and non-absurd definition of "table" and you will see how difficult it is.

I suppose the root of the quest for a definition is insecurity. People don't recognize our work from experience. They don't know what we mean when we say content strategist. But defining content is not going to help. In particular, defining content as "everything" or "stuff" is only going to get us laughed at. You want to be in charge of the strategy for everything? This might suggest to them that we are the last people who should be put in charge of making sure the organization communicates clearly.

There is no shortcut to professional recognition and respect. You have to do the work and do it well and people will eventually recognize what you do.

Sent from Type Mail

[Kevin Nichols]

I am going to ignore the comments that content must be digital, because those of us who do enterprise content strategy know that it doesn't (along with anyone who deals with print or analog).  Anyway, I will offer an alternative to use interchangeably with my definition:

"Content is any COMMUNICATION someone records." In the future, I will most likely still say 'information' as I feel it is accurate (and information is not a synonym for data, which is a response to the beginning of this debate, not a response to Rahel's definition).

Anyway, thank you Noz and Monica for the kudos.

K

[Kevin Mahoney]

Digital is a medium

Sent from my iPhone

[Cruce Saunders]

We could flex "content is data" (which is the easiest definition for engineers) to the broader:

"Content is communicable information."

By "communicable", we inherit:

digital or analog media

context

accessibility

deliverability via channels

contextualisation

recorded

codified

addressable

potential or realized

now or later

communication

By "information", we inherit:

data

meaning

organization

structure

schema

containers

message

user needs

poetry or emotion

experiences

'everything'

'stuff'

I'm hesitant to include 'communicable', because it sounds viral.  But then, influential content often spreads in human networks virally.  So, maybe communicable works after all.

Disclaimer:  Whilst we use a single broad definition to define content, receiver context matters. 

If I'm speaking to developers, IT or CIOs, "Content is data" succinctly suffices.  

If I'm speaking to CEOs, "Content is an asset".  

If addressing CMO's, "Content is everything the organization is and does, and wants to be expressed in experiences."  

If to a philosopher, "Content is."

We communicate because we are.  And, we are because we communicate.  Thank goodness for content to express all this!

Cruce

--

Cruce Saunders

c...@simplea.com

512-646-2100 x 305

--

We are [A]

simplea.com

[David Charron]

Information being contextualized data, it is, by default, meant to be communicated. As for data, well, it is communicable too. Let's keep it simple.

[Erin Kissane]

But are bloggers journalists?

[Matt Moore]

 No, but if we argue about this enough, we will come up the magic answer that will make everyone love us!

*Ahem*

I kinda agree with you Mark. Some of these definitional debates are useful for participants as they expose different sets of assumptions and working practices. But we're not drafting a legal statute here. Any definition that is produced is not going to be tested in a court of law, it's going to be tested the next time you want someone to do something for you.

Another poster talked about how they are would describe content to different audiences (CEO, CIO, CMO) - which I like. This is an empirical approach.

My approach a couple of months ago was to talk about what content is NOT (but often gets confused with).

[Hilary]

For me, content is the manifestation of everything your organization does & has: events, products, opinion pieces, research, programs, etc. That is what we are managing, presenting, strategizing. And our work in doing that must be in partnership with the SMEs who create/own them. Content success is intertwined with the success of what it's about.

Hilary Marsh  |  312-806-7854  | hil...@hilarymarsh.com

Content strategy for associations, nonprofits, corporations:
websites, blogs, social media, e-newsletters
http://www.hilarymarsh.com 
also hilarymarsh on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Slideshare, etc.

[Kevin Nichols]

Erin:

That's a great question...I seem to remember a court case in the US where bloggers were ruled as having the same protections granted to them under the first amendment as journalists...so in the eyes of the court, I recall a legal precedent for establishing bloggers as journalist insofar as protection under the law is concerned...Granted, I don't remember the specific details. But I have seen more than one discussion in comments of NYT.com where investigative journalists challenge the notion of a blogger as a journalist...Of course, there are some classically trained journalists who blog. And some bloggers who uphold the standards of journalism in their blog posts...I think we should debate that now instead of 'define content.' :-)