How are you telling a story with your content today?
You have a blog. Check.
You use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Check, check, check.
You might even be using pictures posted on sites such as Instagram. Bonus check.
These are all elements of your content marketing story, and they contribute to the complete story of your brand, your business, and your connection with those in your niche.
But what if you could bring them all together?
When your content is scattered in different places on the web, your readers have to create a cohesive version of your brand in their minds by cobbling together all of the pieces. If you could weave those elements together, you could present a more satisfying story for your readers.
A few weeks ago, I discovered a way to bring the fragmented pieces of a content marketing story together into a unified, user-friendly whole.
The year of mobile
2011 will be the year of the tablet computer and the continuation of mobile computing that began a few years ago. Your readers use these devices in the form of phones, tablets, and even e-readers, and they increasingly need mobile friendly websites. They are discovering that mobile computing is not only convenient but extremely personal.
And they crave it more and more.
As you publish awesome new content, your story is told in multiple places, bouncing readers from place to place. They don’t even realize how much this fragments their perspective.
This is an opportunity for you to fix a problem that no one yet knows exists.
Welcome to insanely easy tablet publishing
Totally by chance (meaning, a tweet from Brian), I happened upon two talented entrepreneurs you might want to get to know. They’re creating a platform that will allow publishers of content (that’s you) to tell a story in the most amazing way you have ever seen — and all within minutes.
This is OnSwipe, the brainchild of Jason Baptiste and Andres Barreto. Both living in New York and both working 24/7 to bring a new kind of publishing right into your hands.
That collection of platforms — your blog, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram — that you use each day tells your story. It’s your irresistible brand. And Jason and Andres are about to let your site visitors see that entire story in one place.
It is infinitely customizable and doesn’t require any apps. It’s you, the web, your content, and a radically new experience for your audience.
The future of media
I think those guys over at OnSwipe are on to something. They realize that to reach your audience you should be telling the complete story. Here are some key elements of the OnSwipe philosophy of media and publishing:
- Anyone Can Be A Publisher — It used to require a lot of time and capital. But these days anyone with an Internet connection can publish, and it does not just mean an ebook or a blog post. It’s your entire story you tell online with tools including Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
- Social Media Was Built For Publishing — Social media is a distribution channel, and one that lets us connect with our audience in seconds as opposed to days (or even hours).
- New Influencers Are Emerging — There are three types of publishing. Personal publishing like Twitter or Tumblr, large publishers like the New York Times, and a new category called “The New Influencers.” These are a group of people (once again, that’s you) who are influential on a specific topic tied to a valuable demographic.
The new influencers are the next heartbeat of publishing. As Jason put it:
Our hypothesis is that we won’t see another large centralized news organization ever again, but a loosely coupled group of influencers across a broad range of topics. The next Hearst or New York Times will most likely look like the fusion of a media company with the heart of a well designed software company.
The barriers that once prevented you from creating that personal connection with your readers are slowly eroding. You don’t need to rely on a major publisher to tell your story, or to become an app developer to create personalized content on mobile devices.
If the Jasons and Andres of the world have their way, you’ll be able to create mind-blowing experiences for your readers that deliver the ultimate in content marketing and engagement.
Even if you yourself don’t read content on a tablet or smartphone (yet), chances are many of your readers care about mobile — a lot. And that number is only growing.
Once you’re able to weave together a cohesive story that they can see and feel, using one of the most personal computing platforms ever made, then you will be right there at the forefront of content and publishing for the next generation.
You can visit OnSwipe for updates on when the service will be ready.
If you want to know more about OnSwipe, I caught up with Jason and we had a great Skype interview. So I’ll let him tell you where they are headed …
Just click the player to hear the interview:
Or you can click here to download the MP3.
How about you — can you see a user-friendly tablet publishing tool like OnSwipe becoming a powerful tool for your business? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Reader Comments (28)
Shane:
I just read your post today and now I’ll listen to the audio interview.
I’m in total agreement that mobile is the future. I’ve also seen this said in other video and mobile blogs.
It’s always a pleasure when you post, as it carries a technology slant, coupled with a spice of marketing.
Randy
Thanks Randy –
I do try to get spicy when I can! This is definitely mixing marketing and technology but it’s doing so in a way that allows you to really tell your story far and wide.
I feel that this represents a new level of how we weave together our content and I am pleased to see this forthcoming.
Certainly Mobile surfing is improving day by day. Maybe Opera should release some specific plugins for automatically converting a Desktop view into a Mobile view.
Shane,
Awesome awesome interview and glad we got it out there! Seriously, one of my favorite interviews I’ve done so far.
Happy to answer any questions as well.
Thanks Jason! I not only appreciated your time but what you guys are doing…it’s going to make a dent in the universe 🙂
Good article. I don’t think that it’s an either/or type of thing as both mediums will continue to co-exist for sometime. A lot of people talk about about the web being the great equalizer without understanding the real reason that a lot of publisher’s went the OS specific route in the first place. It’s not just about the content.. it’s about be able to do something to stand out from the crowd.
The problem with websites was that since anyone could create one, established media outlets were also competing with companies like the Huffington Post and a ton of other smaller blogs & sites. Due to cost and technical requirements, there’s a barrier to entry on most magazine apps.
The audience tends to spend more time reading magazine content in those apps as opposed to the same articles on the web. Will web apps solve this? We’ll have to wait and see.
Either way, I’m for whatever works. We are a publisher of iPad magazines and we are about to launch another publication using the Treesaver technology that Nomad Editions made popular. In addition we’re also be utilizing Jason’s OnSwipe technology as well.
This is very intriguing. To be honest, I haven’t given the though of mobile surfing much thought. I’ll go check them out.
Definitely check it out Todd! And it’s more about telling your marketing story than anything else…they are just giving us an amazing way to do that for a massively emerging market
We hope you do! Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
Great idea. I think there’s also a plug in you can install on your blog that makes it accessible for mobile phones.
Hi Shane,
I’m new in commenting here so i thought introducing myself would be helpful.
My name is Momo, i’m a 14 Year Old Blogger. I own a blog called iPhoneFuze which i recently finished designing.
I just wanted to say, Excellent post! Very inspiring, and clever!
I think ALL blogs should have a simple and clean mobile theme. More and more people, these days, are using the Smartphones to access millions of blogs around the world. And i bet you, some are accessing your blog with an iPhone right now at this very second!
I’ve seen a WordPress Plugin called “WP-Touch” which gives your blog a customizable theme which only Smartphone Users can see. There’s also a “Switch to Original Theme” Button if your worrying about them missing your Awesome Blog Design. I totally recommend it to ALL Bloggers. It’s fantastic and soo easy!
Anyway, Thanks Again for the Great Post!
Hey Momo, welcome. One thing, what Onswipe does is create a rich-media experience that goes well beyond a simple mobile theme like WP Touch. In other words, it creates an app-like experience on a tablet or other smart mobile device, but without the app. It all comes from the web (as it should).
Wow! Hi Brian, i never would have expected a reply from you… it’s an honour, Really!
Anyway, OnSwipe sounds really good and huge but i’ve got a few questions?
1. Will my blog still contain most of its features such as Sidebars, Navigation, Footer, Widgets ect?
2. Will it work with WordPress Theme Frameworks like Thesis?
3. Is it compatible with SmartPhones like the iPhone?
4. Do we have full control of the design and look of the Theme?
P.S.
By the way Shane, it’s an honour speaking to you too 😀
Hey Momo,
I echo exactly what Brian said. It’s more about weaving together your content “story” and presenting it in a way that readers can experience it without needing an app, etc. Truly exciting what is to come.
Especially for visual artists such as us photographers, we need to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to attractive presentation – on the web, by mobile, on tablets. In this industry as in many others, any service or software or tool that allows us to focus on what we do best – creating art, marketing our services – instead of all the necessary but tertiary work, is a godsend.
I’ve signed up for the OnSwipe beta – I look forward to seeing how it pans out!
James –
Exactly, and well stated. When you are out there telling your story whether it’s via a blog, or photos, or video, or even social networking it’s all about bringing that together and giving readers a cohesive experience.
Visual artists are perfect for the Onswipe platform. A lot of the designs will have a focus on images, so this helps.
I think the idea is fantastic, yet the following quote I read online raised a few questions/issus:
1. The Third Tribe digs having their own content on their own site, so I’m curious as to how this dependency on someone else’s site for content distribution will strike them.
2. How will this service monitize if it’s not an app or a plugin? Will ISPs pay for the added value they can provide (as they now do by saying they support WordPress), or will content providers pay so their sites operate as they should with OnSwipe functionality?
1. It’s all your own branding, name, etc. It’s no different than relying upon someone like Rackspace or Amazon for infrastructure.
2. We’re looking to monetize with beautiful advertising. ie- we help you make money and then get a small cut. Traditional numbers in line with iAds and other premium publishers.
Hope this helps!
I might be having kind of a dense day, but I’m confused this product. On the one hand it seems like it’s going to take your regular website and make it “app-like” on tablets, which is great. (More than great.) But then there’s this bit about unifying your social brand and pulling in all your content streams, and I’m just not seeing the picture you guys are trying to draw. Can you expand on how this side of things works?
Hi Joe –
Yeah….as I understand it you are right on both accounts…so basically what will happen is that you can configure it pretty much anyway you want to initially…by having it capture aspects of your site and then you can choose to also bring in other areas such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram…etc. Jason mentioned that it’s infinitely customizable so I’m sure they have some cool stuff in store.
Then, once you have it set how you want it, a visitor will be able to see that and interact with it once they reach your site…now imagine how amazing that would be from a content marketing standpoint and from the customer’s point of view?
I hope that helps clarify?
That helps, Shane. Sounds like it’s a bit like some of the mobile website building tools, except without all the painful compromises. I’m looking forward to checking it out.
Exactly. It’s like the “less complicated” version of trying to build out your own platform…I’m super excited about it because I see the energy these guys have and their passion for the industry so I know that whatever comes of this will be good 🙂
“Less complicated” is always helpful for these things. Especially if you are Me. 🙂
This is so promising to hear because print media gets annoying in the way that they will not feature certain companies or service providers without strong arming you to advertise in their magazine. I experience this in my wood floor contracting business where companies that are full of it post articles in popular home magazines that are misleading because they run ads all year round.
I think that the really great part about this platform will be that it potentially will add accuracy to the content distributed online because more people can add input to fact check the charlatans
I don’t know how the OnSwipe works ?
but I am still learning here
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