Sorry for the language but I really need to work on my English so I wanted to take the opportunity to practice it, and as the articles were in English I dared to write my essay in English. If there is a problem with it I can rewrite it in Hungarian.

Eighth homework

Mark Schaefer’s article (2014a) was a really interesting one. It talked a lot about how the content shock is overwhelming the life of the content makers and the content consumers as well.

In his definition the content shock means that there are more and more content every day and there will be a point where the amount of content to be consumed will be more than the content people are able to consume.

I think it can happen, just take a look at the content on Youtube; videos together are longer than a people could watch them in a lifetime. On the other hand Schaefer claims this process as a problem. I don’t think this would be a problem. There are different fields of disciplines’ and interests’. People can choose from a huge amount of great content, they can consume what they want. As Schaefer said too was that if there is a competition on the field of creating content then better and better contents will be created so the quality of these contents will increase.

In his next article Schaefer (2014b) answered some dissents. Now I will reflect to some of them and the claims of the other side.

The first statement was that great content will always rise to the top. I can agree with this statement but it should be seen that Schaefer has a point to; people who want their content to be found first need to optimize their writing or even pay for the appearance.

There was another statement which said; it did not cost any more to create great content so the economic assumptions were wrong. I can’t agree with this claim because I think it does cost a lot to create better content than just write down some ideas. The author needs to spend time on it which he or she could spend on anything else. It costs money as well as the author needs equipment, he or she needs to spend money or time on getting the sufficient information and must take the costs of sharing it or reflect on the comments.

There was a third statement which I found pretty interesting. It says that technology will help us overcome the consumption side of content shock. I don’t really agree with this statement because I think the possibilities given by technology are the ones that cause the content shock. It is the technology which makes possible to reach that incredible amount of content which can be accessed now. It is true on the other hand, that with the current technology, for example the algorithms of Google and things like that, the information reaching us is limited. We get information and content which are connected to the ones we searched for before or spent time reading.

To sum up I think that the content shock exists, but I don’t agree that it would be a disadvantageous thing. I think people can decide if they want to spend time with consuming this content or doing something else. I see the content shock as an opportunity.

 Schaefer, Mark (2014a): Content Shock: Why content marketing is not a sustainable strategy (In: Businesses Grow: http://www.businessesgrow.com/2014/01/06/content-shock/  downloaded: 2015.03.25.)

Schaefer, Mark (2014b): Six Arguments Against Content Shock (In: Businesses Grow: http://www.businessesgrow.com/2014/01/27/best-content-rise-top/ downloaded: 2015.03.25