​Content Farms Have an Apple Problem

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Tech

​Content Farms Have an Apple Problem

Content farms must now ‘turn’ on Apple in order to keep the consumer happy.

Apple headlines just might not be getting clicks like they used to. In a world of too much content produced by infinite, identical content farms, the idea of one announcement, product, or 'launch' piece of content, and an old one that is the same every year, is becoming just too hard to sell to content consumers. Time has become an endlessly scrolling webpage of content farmicles.

Apple keynotes started as the ultimate celebration of the digital realm. It was a universal festival of art and technology as commerce, where we all felt like we were momentarily residing at the intersection of technology and culture. It didn't matter if we were consuming the event via liveblog / livetweet on a Macbook or Android device. It felt like we witnessed the world changing, every single event. It felt like we didn't even have to be there--the internet provided the ultimate medium for 'being a part of change.'

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Content farms portray disruption every single day in every single realm of life. The voice of the farm is dependent upon packaging widespread social, cultural and technological change into every meme, post, and thinkpiece. Much like cultural content farms 'turned' on Taylor Swift after her ubiquitous market saturation, content farms must 'turn' on Apple to keep the content consumer happy in their personal, self-rationalizing technological narrative. It's just not fair to readers to continue to tell them that everything has changed.

Instead, Apple has lost its sizzle.

Back when keynotes were on the come up, the internet was smaller, and 'bloggers' were just one person with a voice, giving consumers 'unprecedented access' to exclusive details in the voice of the common man. This was before the common man realized it was just a demand pumping exercise that made them feel like they needed a new device, fueling the consumer angst of the current content farm reading human. The medium was as much of a part of the perception of disruption as the device that would allow you to be eternally connected to the medium for consuming disruption.

Now, content farms are filled with targeted, sponsored, native content. It's hard to tell the difference between the advertorial and the editorial. Instead, 'negative' reviews and recaps of everpresent services like Apple and Facebook give the reader a safe space for pointless deconstruction.

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The synergy between Apple and content farm coverage as co-dependent teammates is over. A new Apple phone every so often can be found when you go to your mobile carrier to learn that they don't really carry discounted phones when you sign up for new plans any more. There is no ethical quandary that mass farming consumers want to read about the production of iPhones or wasted data from over-consumption of content.

Questioning the importance of the keynote will emerge as the new voice of Apple coverage.

Technology farms have turned their attention to new unicorns, which are quickly scaling companies that #growth_hacked their way to billion dollar valuation status. Products, apps, and services like Uber, SnapChat and AirBNB provide the iterative 'feature' rollout that allows the perpetual stream of novelty. Content farm consumers see Apple a stable of mass technology in society, no longer required to disrupt.

Maybe Apple should just make Elon Musk a 'godfather offer' so that his Unicorn-riding brand can reinvigorate the evangelistic brand of technological spirituality back to Apple. A celebrity-driven event centered around the public speaking talents of a guru. With that hook, it would be easier to package content as 'mattering' more than any other content.

While content farms still flood the web with generalist recaps of keynotes, it does feel like there is a boiling angst within content farms, creating thinkpieces about why it is time to take Apple out to pasture. Part of the problem is with the asynchronous information architecture of content farms. Nothing is 'breaking' news and every post is packaged to last over the course of time in related content that mainly functions as an advertisement to stumbling around users.

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Perhaps the long tail consumer on Facebook doesn't want to read about the rise of Apple any more. They are mindlessly embedded consuming trends through Facebook on their affordable Android phone. Maybe they would prefer to read why their iPhone 5 is still good enough through an Upworthy style post about 'one woman who decided it was time to stop upgrading phones… and her life was better for it.'

While Apple keynotes paved the way for keynote style conferences, interactive festivals, conclaves, TED Talks, and other popular events that made people feel 'smart' [via consuming some one in front a big black screen], it is just too difficult to sort through the hours and hours of online video where some one said something that really mattered. Pages and pages of internet can't contextualize anything meaningful for the content consumers. The trend itself is not interesting enough any more to warrant auto-clicks from the content farm readers.

As a content farmer, I know that every trend has a useful life. Whether it is Justin Bieber, Lana Del Rey, or a niche microceleb's era of social backlash, things just don't stay interesting [via clickability] forever. What do you do when the same content doesn't work like it used to? Content farms are turning on Apple in order to keep the reader's narrative with the company alive. Terms like 'boring,' 'thud,' and 'flop' must be thrown around in order to keep bigger new phones, iPad screens, styluses and watches interesting to the content farm consumer.

The era of the social web as a reliable incubator of buzz is over. While we consumed the idea of portable devices giving us 'a better life,' the voice of content farmers spread the message. Content farms (formerly branded as blogs) were paid with bountiful amounts of clicks on people wanting to 'break through the noise' to get the best Apple keynote recaps, rumors, reviews, product walkthroughs and insider indepth insightful analysis.

Content [via content farms] can't be disruptive, nor can it capture the spirit of disruption in a way that readers can trust. Apple devices are just another way to flood your life with the fluidity of information created after we became dependent upon new information.

Carles.Buzz is the fallen content farmer behind HIPSTER RUNOFF. Read more Life on the Content Farm here.