The Internet Of Things Will Make Content Personal

The Internet of Things won’t mark the first time that companies have worked alongside customers, offering help automatically and in real time. Clippy, Microsoft’s animated helper, made its first appearance in Outlook 95. The cartoon paperclip would pop up at unexpected moments to offer advice about writing a letter or creating a report. It was a disaster. More irritating than helpful, Smithsonian Magazine called Clippy, and his band of friends, one of computing’s worst software design blunders.

As connectivity chips link firms to increasing numbers of  products, the story of Clippy should act as a warning—not against providing customers with real-time help but against offering help that’s intrusive and impersonal. It’s possible that users really could have benefited from the knowledge that Clippy was trying to offer but they wanted control over when that help was being offered. And when they were writing a business letter, they wanted it in a voice that was serious and professional not childish and informal.

What Microsoft got wrong wasn’t the principle of tracking user behavior and using that data to enhance the user experience; they got the execution of the content wrong, and in the process, they destroyed the experience.

Today, content marketers know better. We know about gamification and we can use it to both inform and encourage interaction. So when someone jogs wearing a healthband, for example, we can send messages of encouragement and award badges for distance or heart rate. The content that the data produces feels fun rather than intrusive and enhances rather than interrupts.

We also have a better understanding of voice so when Digi International’s in-home monitoring system identifies weight gain in patients at risk of heart disease, the information it sends to a medical center comes in the form of professional data rather than informal notifications. The patients themselves then receive a personal call from a nurse or a doctor, and in critical cases emergency hospitalization.

As the Internet of Things spread, content marketers will be asked to supply voices and messages for objects as diverse as fridges and spanners, and cars and garage openers. Each of those voices will need to match the user at the time that he or she is using the product. The messages might be delivered on screens as well as on objects with no screens at all. But they will always have to be delivered in a way that’s helpful, enjoyable and that produces a positive user experience.

The Internet of Things is already growing. Twelve million RFID tags, the chips used to capture data and track objects, were sold in 2011. By 2021, those numbers are expected to reach 209 billion tags in more than 50 billion devices. Each of those devices will need a voice and a strategy to make sure that voice is heard, listened to and enjoyed.

Click here and get your FREE copy of ASTELO's practical guide:
"101 Content Marketing - The New Face of Digital Marketing".