Content Relevance Kills Content Perfection

Vin Crosbie of The ClickZ Network on his article Good Enough Triumphs Over Perfection writes “Once content is good enough to be relevant, it needn't be perfect.”

He is referring to the way traditional media (TV, Newspapers and Radio) views the level of quality and perfection needed to distribute a message. Crosbie goes on to saying “YouTube has triumphed over the traditional video networks online, despite all their investments. Wikipedia, despite inaccuracies, has triumphed over Encyclopaedia Britannica and other publishers who attempt perfection. Google News and Yahoo News each have more users than the Web sites of any newspaper or news broadcaster. All because their content, although not perfect, is good enough.”

On the web we don’t seem to mind if the message is not placed on a flawlessly designed website or if the video showing you how to fix your particular problem is not adequately lit as long as we can find what we are looking for.

The reason for this is that all of us use the web for one thing…and that is to find answers to what we are looking to solve. And if we find the answers we don’t seem to care much if they are not presented in the best “paper”.

This does not mean that you should through your brand’s image out the door and forget quality and creativeness, it just makes a point that relevance of message and timing to market are more important that a flawless look.

I'll have a hard time selling this to our designers... : )