Big premium content producers allow these third parties ["horizontal-ad networks"] to aggregate their impressions and their data and pay mere pennies in return is one of the most value-destructive practices imaginable.

It is, in fact, these kinds of misguided practices that are at the root of the problems around making content organizations successful in the digital world.

via Jim Spanfeller, Think Technology Trumps Content? Well, You’re Wrong | paidContent.

But I actu­ally think stock and flow is the mas­ter metaphor for media today. Here’s what I mean:

• Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind peo­ple that you exist.
• Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the con­tent you pro­duce that’s as inter­est­ing in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what peo­ple dis­cover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, build­ing fans over time.

I feel like flow is ascen­dant these days, for obvi­ous reasons—but we neglect stock at our own peril.

via Robin Sloan, Stock and flow « Snarkmarket.

I feel like the attempts to manage the firehose is just more of the same thing: technology being used to solve a mess that technology got us in in the first place. As a result, the real appeal of content and the human elements of creating, composing and lovingly arranging content are going out the window.

I need to be able to lean on people I trust and respect to better present information for me. I don’t want a “stream” or a “river” of anything. I want to stop drowning and I want quality to win over quantity.

via Rich Ziade, Scatter/Gather: a Razorfish blog about content strategy, pop culture and human behavior.