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> You're on the internet, your content is instantly automatically available to 1 billion people. I'm surprised anyone would say this, given the realities of th

> You're on the internet, your content is instantly automatically available to 1 billion people. I'm surprised anyone would say this, given the realities of the media landscape. It's very, very, rare for 'good' content to get automatic distribution. Some viral content does get high exposure, but most content, especially barely-insightful commentary that is produced on Medium has very little mass appeal. When you consider that the average RPM (revenue per thousand page views) is around $1.50 or less then even an article with ten thousand views can only make $15, which is barely worth writing it. It's also extremely difficult to rank content using search engines, as anyone who knows about SEO will testify. The market is very crowded and big content brands dominate the top positions. In short, content on the web is a commodity. However, it's important to note that search engines are not the only form of distribution. There are many opportunities to grow an audience in new media that is coming up. For example a new provider of VR content can grow quickly, even if their content is crappy, because the distribution channel (VR hardware) is growing.

user5994461 10y ago
> It's also extremely difficult to rank content using search engines, as anyone who knows about SEO will testify. The market is very crowded and big content brands dominate the top positions. In short, content on the web is a commodity. My experience contradicts this. Probably because we are talking about different things. If you look for "hotels in new york" or "how to not get fat?" or something about trump. It is indeed crowded, the search engines are already filled with "relevant" results and you cannot compete with that. yet for every of this non sense, there are other ten expressions who are not crowded and it's very easy to rank on top. The first means that you cannot create another useless stupid news site filled with non news and rank anywhere significantly on these topics. The latter one means you can write about targeted topics and rank on the first page very easily on them.
- sparkzilla 10y ago
  The problem with niche content is that it doesn't bring a big audience and is very time intensive. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

user5994461 10y ago

> It's also extremely difficult to rank content using search engines, as anyone who knows about SEO will testify. The market is very crowded and big content brands dominate the top positions. In short, content on the web is a commodity. My experience contradicts this. Probably because we are talking about different things. If you look for "hotels in new york" or "how to not get fat?" or something about trump. It is indeed crowded, the search engines are already filled with "relevant" results and you cannot compete with that. yet for every of this non sense, there are other ten expressions who are not crowded and it's very easy to rank on top. The first means that you cannot create another useless stupid news site filled with non news and rank anywhere significantly on these topics. The latter one means you can write about targeted topics and rank on the first page very easily on them.

sparkzilla 10y ago
The problem with niche content is that it doesn't bring a big audience and is very time intensive. There's no such thing as a free lunch.