Have you heard about The List App? It’s a new venture from actor/writer/producer B.J. Novak that is pretty basic in its premise: It’s an app for lists. Some publications have already jumped on board and you can read about those examples here.
I can’t help but think of this in the same way I’m thinking of Facebook’s Instant Articles, Snapchat or other networks that don’t have any direct ties back to a publisher website. It’s very much in the “create branded outposts elsewhere” model of those, Medium and other sites and apps.
That makes it a boon for content marketers who now get to think about how to build a network on this new app, how to create new workflows – or modify existing ones – to stock it and so on. Innovation means job insurance. But for the actual companies and clients the value proposition, much like it is on Medium, Snapchat and elsewhere, is a bit dicier.
Abandoning the hub-and-spoke model means giving up everything that comes with it, mostly site-traffic, the collection of visitor information and the ability to move that visitor down the conversion funnel. The benefits are that you’re going where the people are. And List App’s singular focus means that as long as you’re playing within those guidelines then you’re delivering on the promise to the audience.
So it just comes down to creating good content, for lack of a better phrase. If you can crack that nut and are comfortable with the trade-offs involved in creating content that lives entirely off-domain, there are lots of opportunities here.
Years ago Amazon offered a list-making feature. People could make all sorts of lists on Amazon. And you’d get affiliate profits from your list. Now the list-making feature is no longer offered by Amazon. I rather miss it.