Information is a good thing, by its nature it conveys value and power. What is not useful is meaningless data or content. The change we face is that a lot of traditional content has become meaningless and it increasingly fails to convey value.

For example: Traditional media now have sacrificed proper journalism and all run the same stories using PR’s and newswires that are out of date by the time they are read. Take the weather, we can get a free update what the weather will be like from numerous sources. It isn’t content anybody would readily pay for. On the other hand detailed long range forecasts are worth a fortune to retailers, farmers etc.. who can gain a commercial advantage from this information.

New technologies and behaviours mean we have to re-evaluate all the sea of data and content that is available to us. We need to use new technologies and learn new ways of managing to turn meaningless content into into information that we can profit from.

The people who rubbish Twitter or Facebook don’t understand that this is about a broader trend than whether these are good companies or services. The world’s content is being surfaced now it is just a question of whether you are going to drown or bathe in it.

Similarly, having email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and websites at our fingertips allows us to select those tidbits most important to us at any one time and leave the rest for others to consume.

Too little and you’re left hungry…too much and you have indigestion!