The C Word Needs a Revamp

We're looking for the best stuff that's been online this year - and we need your help.Bill Gates wrote in 1996 that "Content is king", and he was right. Advertisers and Internet users have both learnt that the way to get noticed online is by making something people like enough to share...

We're looking for the best stuff that's been online this year - and we need your help.

Bill Gates wrote in 1996 that "Content is king", and he was right. Advertisers and Internet users have both learnt that the way to get noticed online is by making something people like enough to share.

But, sorry Bill, there's something wrong with The C Word. Your prediction of the Internet's future has almost summed up its problem.

The web was once a mass of exotic sites to be visited, but now we're all in the business of making content. Creation is the norm. If content is king, then his crown has lost its sparkle because we've been staring at it for too long.

YouTube stars are no longer just people talking to other people through video cameras - they are 'content creators.'

When you use the Facebook app on your phone, are you thinking, "I'm just going to consume a nice bit of content"?

After you finish watching Russell Brand's latest video, are you saying to yourself, "I just can't wait until he releases some new content"?

You aren't, because content is a ridiculous word. Its literal meaning is 'what is contained' in something. The insides. The non-descript stuff.

The C Word accurately describes the things we read, watch and do on the internet, yet it doesn't do online life justice.

It's bland, non-specific and uninspiring. One word is not enough to describe the pulsating, overwhelming, fascinating, amazing, disguising, moving, addictive, funny, pointless, painful, repetitive material we wade through every day. It's the antithesis of the horribly generic term we have coined.

But I'm as guilty as you - I use the word content, because there's no better term. Perhaps the best thing we can do, while we still lack the proper word, is to think about the other meaning of The C Word: to feel content, as in happy or satisfied.

When something satisfies us, or makes us happy, that's what matters, and that's what makes it lifts it out of the oceans of material we wade through every day.

For me, this year's best would be Emma Watson's UN speech, Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits in the inspired Volvo Trucks advert, and HuffPost's own beautiful blog that moved us to tears; And So There Must Come An End.

At HuffPost UK, we are hoping to celebrate those outstanding online moments and bring some meaning back to The C Word word this year.

Using research, our knowledge and your suggestions, we are working in partnership with Ogilvy PR London to put together a list of what we rate as the best pieces of online content (sorry) for 2014. The C Word list will be revealed in December.

We'd like your help: what have you seen that has gone beyond the bland and moved you, made you laugh or made you think this year? It can be an article, a video, a campaign or even just a single tweet.

Please send us your best content of 2014 suggestions to thecword@huffingtonpost.com, tweet with #cword2014 or comment below to add your ideas.

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