Sean —
I agree with much of your thesis. In fact, I published a similar analysis in “Content Consumption Is Obsolete: The Problem Is a Matter of Supply & Demand”. It’s a good read about the macro and microeconomics of the content marketplace, in which I concluded:
“The killer products & services were once those that procured scarce content for us; the killer apps now are those that filter abundant content for us. The challenge of the future is personalization that not only separates good content from bad (Discovery), but also facilitates the way we interact with it — from how we extract what’s important within each piece (Consumption), to how we learn from it (Retention), and how we implement it (Collaboration).”
Of particular interest to you, that article apparently inspired Annotote, which is a direct response to your observation that “Our ability to create and distribute information has far outgrown our ability to assimilate that information”. There’s a full post about it here, including supporting data:
I share those two articles with you not so much for the moral support, but more because I think you’d find the data in each useful. Feel free to share your thoughts!
