In September last year Stoney deGeyter wrote a very entertaining post in which he claimed that content was dead, and that community has replaced it as king in the tired old cliché. It was nearly everything a good post should be, controversial, topical and witty. He even threw in some content-related statistics, which he claims don`t really make the appropriate connection between the importance of content and web marketing. The problem is that he`s trying to refute the irrefutable.

He says the cliché about content (which he refused to voice) harks back to the old days of SEO when rankings were the only thing that mattered and content was iffy at best. He seems to think that now we know better, we should focus primarily on our target audience and create websites that enhance the user experience. Which is, of course, entirely correct. He adds that while content still has a role to play in SEO, building a community that facilitates knowledge and interaction regarding the products/services we sell, is the future of search. Which is also correct.

The wheels fall off his argument though, with his continued insistence that content is not that important. It`s a ridiculous allegation and one that elicited many colourful responses from his readers.

How else does one establish a community online, if one does not rely on good content? How does one attract members to that community, or keep them interested once they`re there? Blogs, ratings and reviews are all fine ways to encourage interaction, but what are they if not content? When one of his readers made that point, deGyeter countered with an argument that content should exist for the sake of the community, and not simply for its own sake.

Surely if content is going to serve the community, it assumes even greater importance than content that serves itself. One of the reasons that building communities and encouraging interaction is so important (through blogs, review and ratings) is because people like to generate their own content. There is little more satisfying than producing something for the whole world to see, even if it`s only a two-sentence review on vacuum cleaners. This underscores the importance of content rather than undermines it.

I think that I understand what deGeyter was trying to say, that content shouldn`t stand alone as the saving grace of the online world (that and he`s sick to death of the freaking cliché). Perhaps we would be better off thinking of content as a cornerstone on which all other tools are based. In that way, the Web could be seen more as a democracy than a monarchy, where there are no kings and everything is measured on its own merit.

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