Content Delivery: A 7-Platform Visualization

This is the 2.0 model we’re currently using  at Creative Loafing to visualize, market and deliver our content through seven very real, very distinct platforms. It will continue to change and adapt over time to fit new media, new content and new audiences – but for now, this is what we’re dealing with.

Content Delivery Model 2.0

A. Platforms (numbered here 1-7) are portals through which content is delivered to an end-user:

1. Printed material (newspaper, magazines, even printed collateral such as shirts, flyers, etc.)

2. Web (Web sites, social networks)

3. Messaging (typically a  branch of Web - this can include e-mail, text, Twitter)

4. Mobile (A combination of Web and Messaging, but definitely a platform of it’s own – WAP sites, iPhone Apps, the Mobile Web)  

5. Audio (CDs, podcasts, even word of mouth)

6. Video (DVDs, Web video, digital billboards, POP screens)

7. Events or experiences (physical or street-level events, performances or personal interaction)

B. Content flows in streams. These can be adapted to any industry (music, etc.) but in this model are for the purposes of the publishing industry and are labeled sales (red), editorial (yellow) and marketing (blue). Since these departments typically create or drive content together, these streams are depicted as “braided” or flowing simultaneously. (The publishing model also allows for Operations and Circulation – two departments that support content delivery and can be the “subject” of content, but that typically do not create it).

C. The Qualities of the individual streams can be

1. Static / Archivable (stored media, media on “the cloud,” physical media)

2. Forwardable (most of the messaging platform - e-mail, re-tweets, as well as word of mouth)  

3. Interactive (2-way interaction with a medium, mostly web- or event-based)

4. Degradable (as in a newspaper that deteriorates or a memory of an event that fades)

D. The platforms (or portals) themselves are not mutually exclusive. Audio content can be a podcast, but it can also be word of mouth. Video can be an individually-viewed YouTube clip or a digital billboard in full view of everyone. Content can (and should) be delivered through more than one platform at a time. Content can also be a multi-platform experience such as a Web site (2) forwarded to you via e-mail (3) and then viewed via the mobile Web (4) (see illustration), or printed material (1) handed to you at an event (7).

E. All platforms represent outbound delivery and are not directly related to (or limited to) sense receptors of any one end-user. The audience interacts with content based on varying combinations of stream qualities and platform relevance. A printed artifact can engage the sense of touch, sight and even smell. Video affects sight and hearing (excluding touch-screens). Event-based content typically takes advantage of all the user’s senses for a given length of time.

Most people are familiar enough with the publishing model: editorial content is supported by advertising, marketed within a community and circulated to its readers. Simple enough. Same goes for the Web: content is framed by advertising and marketed via search/e-mail platforms to an ideally immediate and plugged-in readership or audience (that is loyal to the writer/artist, voice of the publication or the company brand). But for the purposes of our model, any creation of content (book publishing, music, art, film) and the housing and delivery of it (management, distribution) must be viewed as one living, integral system.*

*In genetic terms, consider these sales/advertising elements as the power stores, the mitochondria that will create the food or energy within the cell to drive and deliver content outward. It is the job of the marketing “nucleus” to maintain that the brand identity and editorial “DNA” is properly replicated or “transcribed.”