10 Possible New Types Of Content For Your Website

10 POSSIBLY NEW TYPES OF CONTENT FOR YOUR SITE

Posted on February 5, 2012 by admin | in longhorn

As the Internet continues to expand its reach and prominence as a communications medium, the content we share on the web evolves along with it. Since the earliest days of sharing text files and documents, things have profoundly changed. Here are ten types of web content that you might be able to add to your site to help make an impression upon your readers or to just get your points across:

1. Video Supercuts – Basically a video montage of assorted clips from movies or other sources, to highlight a single element or theme, such as a cliché.
2. Fan Fiction – Content that is created by a fan of, and based upon, an original work. It is generally neither authorized by, nor associated with, the originator, and is usually self-published.
3. Recut Movie Trailers – These are parody videos of movie trailers, that utilize existing clips, but placed out of sequence, use alternate dialogue and soundtracks. Although some examples have been around for a while in one form or another, this content type has only recently become widespread.
4. Bad Lip-Reading Videos – This began as spoofing of music videos by the insertion of nonsensical lyrics over the original; it’s now also used to spoof politicians and celebrities. The idea here is to provide a narrative or dialogue that somewhat matches the mouth movements of the video subjects.
5. Mashups – Websites that combine functionality, content, and presentation from two or more different sources. The result is an enriched, easier version of the content and services provided by the separate sources.
6. Wikis – As in the case of the popular site Wikipedia, these are sites whose content is created and edited collaboratively. Ironically, some of the most valuable content to your readers may only be found in their own minds (other variations are forums and blogs).
7. Infographics – This content type provides a graphic representation of complex data or information that makes it easier to comprehend visually. There are a ton of sites that have completely built their reputations around great infographics likeTheOatmeal.com. A recent twist to infographics is to make them interactive through flash and other technologies.
8. Lists, lists, and more lists – As you may or may not be able to tell, we are big fans of lists that make it super easy for your readers to pull out the information they are interested in at a glance. Whether it’s a list of 5, 10, 20, 40, or even 100 people tend to love them since the lists are generally organized well and quick reads.
9. Word Clouds – So word clouds are fun ways of representing text using different fonts, layouts, and color schemes to really create some thought-provoking content. A great place to find out more about word clouds is Wordle.net.
10. Image Articles – One variation of a list article is to use images with just a caption for each image. You often see these on sites like CNN and other places that incorporate lots of different types of media into their pages. These can be 10 works of art, 10 pics of celebs without makeup (no idea why people can’t seem to get enough of these), 10 recent Walmart shopper pics (ditto), or 10 mis-spelled tattoos people regret getting.

Some of these types of content may be old hat to you, but if you are relatively new to blogging you may or may not have thought of some of these. Whatever you do, we encourage you to stretch your own limits and even your comfort zone some to really find new ways to reach out to and make a connection with your readers.