I have seen the future and it is ZIte-like.
Zite is the best utility I have seen so far to actually “learn” what content I enjoy. It customizes an evolving delivery system based on what it is learning about me. The more I use it, the better it gets.
In fact, it is doing such a good job delivering intensely amazing content it has become addictive. I’ve already abandoned many other sources of online news and insight.
But this is not an ad for Zite, which is just one of many innovations we will see to help us navigate through our information-dense world. Today, I wanted to have us think through together the marketing implications of a new wave of radical content filters.
ZEO?
Five years ago when you or I did a search on Google for the best deal on an automobile or a review of a new car model, we would get similar results … probably the same results. But over time, Google has made its search results highly-tailored to your environment. Where are you? Who are you? Who are your friends? This has resulted in an ever-tightening bubble of personalized results. The results you would get today are almost certainly different than what I would get.
Zite is an even more extreme example of this as it actually pushes content to you and only you, constricting the scope of possible content that you see.
Let’s say you are trying to create content about automobiles that will be organically discovered by a high-potential customer like me. To get through this filter, you won’t just have to somehow push it to the top of Google, you may also have to get it through the Zite algorithm … and all the Zite competitors crowding into this increasingly important space.
