Much Ado About Facebook

All Facebook have covered the wonderful experiment that has been taking place, re-enacting Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing on Facebook.

The idea is that each character in the play has a profile and uses it to communicate, telling the story as they go.

Wonderful artistry aside, I think this is a great way of bringing one of Shakespeare’s greatest (IMO) works to an audience who are used to consuming content in bitesize chunks.

Benedick currently has 419 likes, whilst Beatrice has 431, indicating a small but dedicated group are watching the experiment unfold.

I think this is an awesome idea – what do you think?

More On The Link Economy

Google’s much vaunted tweaking of its search algorithm to help bury content farm-produced materials, seems to have had the desired result, according to CNet.

We compiled approximately 2,000 search terms from a sampling of Google Insights’ Web, news, and shopping searches. We then removed the duplicates, resulting in a total of 1,656 search terms, tested those with Google.com (while not logged in), and compiled the results.

This is particularly key for bloggers who deal in quality of content, rather than quantity.

By producing quality content, you hope it will rise to the top of the pile, aided by links from other blogs and websites. Linking to another site or blog indicates that you think it providing a useful resource that a reader will find informative or helpful.

It’s the digital handshake that links the blogosphere, and as Google takes these handshakes as a sign of quality content, they are all important and hold a certain level of currency-like value.

The New York Times recently took to the paywall route:

[Martin] Nisenhotlz insists that the paywall is an essential first step to better managing the link economy of the Internet for the benefit of all publishers. The ‘web of managed links’ is Nisenhotltz’s vision, a movement where content publishers control how their content is shared so that they don’t simply boost the value of aggregators and new digital platforms.

I believe that this way of managing content will not work unless all content providers follow suit, but then what will a link to their content be worth if a blogger were to link to the content that the majority of their readers would not be able to read without paying?

Hiding Content Behind A Like

Brands using the lure of exclusive content on Facebook to grow fan numbers in a bid to encourage engagement, is nothing new.

The New Yorker is experimenting by hiding an article by Jonathan Franzen behind their ‘Like’, making it only available to people who click that button and become opted-in to consuming content from their page.

A spokeswoman from the newspaper has said:

“Our goal with this isn’t just to increase our fans. We want to engage with people who want to engage on a deeper level.”

However, I do not tend to agree that a ‘like’ indicates ‘a deeper level’ of engagement. indeed, it doesn’t indicate engagement at all.

It indicates endorsement.

Engagement then occurs subsequently as ‘fans’ leave comments and embark on taking part in dialogue with other like-minded people.

It is then in that moment that a brand can interact and engage.

A ‘like’ is akin to being given access to the door and walking through it; just because you walk into a shop doesn’t mean you’re going to buy something.

I’d like to see TNY take part in dialogue and rewarding their readers with more than straight forward content, but with experiences and opportunities not available to those who aren’t a part of the community.

It’s a start, but there’s so much more that can be done. It seems a little like a gimmick to me – what do you think?