It’s hard to believe that it’s been 18 years since Bruce Springsteen lamented that there were “57 channels and nothing on.” Back in 1992 when the song was released, such a huge cable lineup was unfathomable, and the frustration he experienced trying to navigate the sudden increase of content caused the Boss to write that he bought a .44 magnum to blow away his television– Elvis style.
Today, when you consider the explosion of content online, 57 channels seem as limiting as choosing between french fries or mashed potatoes. Consider the statistics offered by social media think tank, Socialnomics.
* You Tube hosts more than 100 million videos.
* Users post 153 articles to Wikipedia per hour.
* There are over 200 million blogs and more than 54% of bloggers post new content or tweet daily.
* Hulu went from 63 million streams to 373 million total streams in one year.
* Facebook users share more than 1.5 million pieces of content every day.
That’s a lot of content, too much to navigate on your own. So how will one navigate content online? The same way we do offline world– we’ll get referrals.