Cory Doctorow recently made a statement that struck a chord with me:

“Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.” via

This is an intriguing statement, because, for so long, I’ve thought that content was the critical element. Cory raises an interesting point though - if stranded on a desert island, you chose to bring a DVD library over a group of friends, you’d be labeled a sociopath. He’s right, content is just something to talk about. Content spurs conversation, effectively crowning conversation as the new monarch.

How do we create a good conversation though? How do we engage our readers, listeners, viewers?

There are many ways to do this. The big media companies are starting to realize that conversation is king as well - they’re creating tools for us to hack up their content (as I’ve covered before), which spawns all sorts of discussion about the media itself. They’re afraid that these mashups will remove the focus from their original creations; they’re just realizing that these have the opposite effect — they put the spotlight back on.

The secret project I mentioned a few days go involves conversation, quite heavily. In our meeting about the project today, the team and I came up with an even more exciting way to keep the conversation up, and I’m extremely excited about it. I think you will be too.

In the meantime, why not start a conversation yourself? Comment below or email me (editor [\at/] youmakemedia [\dot/] com). I’d love to hear from you!