I believe that in the future media companies will generate the bulk of their value from serving their ability to aggregate and serve audiences better than the competition. It doesn’t matter if the media company actually creates or even controls the content that draws them.

— Charlene Li, Forrester Research

This was posted back in May, but I guess she updated it today somehow and it showed up in my RSS feed again. I must have spaced it the first time around so that was a good thing.
In addition to her comments, there is a good thread of comments reacting to it. Worth the read.
Developing a brand identify that projects that one’s content (aggregated or not) is better than competitors is a key here. That is what Digg is well on the way to doing. However, it’s the quality of the content that rules — whether created or aggregated. Having the best content is the challenge for all lthose who aspire to win audiences.
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