Google used to be king. It’s not anymore. Today, the winners are community platforms.
Before the internet, getting connected to information was hard. Google made it easy. But as the digital age matured and people adapted and learned to game search engines, the value of “how” information decreased.
Now, a major shift has happened in the digital world; the dominant question has moved from “how” to “who.”
There’s too much SEO-optimized, pre-manufactured content. People don’t need another 5-step guide to starting a partner program or another listicle.
Instead, they need context-specific information.
They need to know how to solve a specific problem, within a specific context.
Just last year, we reported that people were using Google to search Reddit.
AI is taking that a step further.
AI Platforms want to train their models to answer context-specific questions, but the only way they can do that is by learning from authentic, community conversations.
In the “who” economy, value won’t come from “how” information. Value will come from the things that are authentic, human, and non-manufactured. Information from nodes of trust.
Want to know how valuable all of the “who” information is?
Just look at how much people are willing to pay for Reddit’s API.
Kyle Wiggers
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