LP Content

Think about the changes the music industry has gone through in just the last 30 years. The focus has shifted from 8-tracks and albums to cassettes to cds to digital. A show like "American Top 40" (with Casey Kasem back in my day) used to have incredible power is now marginalized by MTV, iTunes, Amazon and satellite radio.

The focus of music as a product has shifted too. The main focus used to be selling albums: 33 1/3 LPs. Yes, you could buy "45s" - also known as singles, but the main focus was on selling whole albums. Today, it's downloads and ringtones.

Even the name is telling. The name LP stands for "long play." Who has time for long? As we've already discussed, short is the new long.

Written content is undergoing a similarly radical change. Freed from the confines of books and magazines, information is flowing, searchable and available. It's become a commodity. Being an "author" is no longer reserved for only the elite as decided by a publishing company - anyone can blog or self-publish and have their voice be heard.

Just as you are no longer bound to the record player to hear your music, users of the Internet won't forever be tied to a computer. Users will access your content from their phones, PDAs and other portable devices. Just as your Pink Floyd LP can't be played with your iPod, these new devices aren't good for digesting "LP content." Reading a long article or downloading large pages on your phone is tedious and painful.

Content is (and will always be) king. But the king is changing.