Jun 20, 2009

The Four C's of Quality Content, Part 4 of 4

4) Clean and Unbiased – As most of us know, there’s no shortage of questionable ulterior motives, unfairly biased opinions and downright scams. Most of us have probably seen the Jim Cramer vs. John Stewart episode and need no further proof of the one-sided nature of the media in general. How do we know who has our best interests at heart? If they’re selling something on our first contact, it’s pretty easy to spot. Others you just have to watch for a while and see what they’re promoting. Almost everyone has some type of agenda they're promoting. So the questions becomes, what are they promoting as they integrate their pitch into the content?

+ Jim Collins’ stuff is pretty strait forward. His books, “Good to Great” and “Built to Last” are research intensive, and provide the readers with analysis of principles most of us can incorporate into our business and daily lives. But the best part about his writings, books, and research is that he’s not selling you anything other than the principles he’s discovered. Sure, he’s game for consulting gigs, and book sales, like most business authors. But the book isn’t being used as bait.

- Howard Lindzon is the popular stock blogger and creator of wallstrip.com. In the first few pages of his book "The Wallstrip" he advises his readers to turn off the TV, stop following hot stock tips, and avoid headlines. Contrary to the advise he gives in his book, he sends out a barrage of stock pick twits on a daily basis. Similar to Jim Cramer, Lindzon hypes a stock by calling it long or short, creating a very real and inherit conflict of interest. Such content is of course biased and what some might call "unclean."